"Before I knew how to write or even read, I was a story-listener. Dad comes from a long line of yarn-spinners, many of them tellers of tall-tales. I loved hearing about his misadventures as he grew up in the Ozarks or the Willamette Valley, or his tales of life in the Navy in the late 1960s and taking shore leave in Japan. (The Navy yarns were highly edited; I realized this when Mom let slip a detail here or there, her lips pursed, her tone displeased.)

 

"Mom, too, loved stories, and read several books a week, in addition to those she shared with my brother and me. In the car while on long trips, or at bedtime as we settled down to sleep, Mom read Bible stories and children’s books aloud. I listened intently to everything, and thus my love of story was born."

 

 

Keanan Brand is a pseudonym for an author who writes a variety of fiction and poetry. He is also a freelance editor, and the author of the forthcoming epic fantasy duology, The Lost Sword, which titles include Dragon's Rook (2015) and Dragon's Bane.

 

He contributed a short story, “Shooting the Devil’s Eye”, for Raygun Chronicles anthology (2013). The story is a prequel to Thieves’ Honor, a science fiction serial (2008-2012) he wrote for Ray Gun Revival, an online magazine specializing in all things space opera. Prior to that, his post-apocalyptic story “At the End of Time, When the World Was New” was published in the final issue of Dragons, Knights & Angels magazine (December 2007).

 

He blogs occasionally at Adventures in Fiction and at Penworthy Press.