A.J. Church

I grew up an Air Force brat, so we moved around a lot. I don't think I attended the same school two years in a row until my father got out of the Air Force and we moved to Florida when I was twelve. Because I was shy, making friends was hard, so I made imaginary friends and created stories and worlds where they and I lived. I started writing the stories down when I was eight, and despite all my moves, I still have a lot of those early notebooks. I was also an avid bookworm at an early age. I remember when I was in third grade, I had a friend whose parents bought her all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. She would loan me one each day, and I would run home from school so I could start reading, often sitting up with a flashlight reading under the covers to finish it so I could take it back to her and get the next one.

Right now I'm working on the second book of my Erebus Files series. The concept for the series was inspired by Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld series, where each book is about different, sometimes overlapping characters tied together by location. In this case, the location is the fictional city of Erebus. The second book is about Red, a street-smart female thief who contracts to steal magical artifacts for a local pawnbroker. The book was actually written five years ago for NaNoWriMo, though it was quite a bit different at that time. I put it aside for a couple of years, then when I started developing the concept of the Erebus series, I decided I would rework it to fit. I'm almost finished with that now and targeting Halloween as a publishing date.

I am also working on the last two books of the 'Ru Lexicon trilogy. Book 1 revolved around the character of Raphael. Book 2 will be Elise's story, and Book 3 will be Rudolf's. I'm hoping to get both written and published sometime next year.