I've been telling stories for as long as I had a mind to think with. I was always that child who couldn't watch a movie without coming up with an idea for the sequel, or who wanted the games we played in my cousin's backyard to have long, complex plots. Growing up in Austin, Texas, I'd hide in the grassy flood ditches at the edge of my cul-de-sac and read for hours.

It was in this unlikely library that I read the end of *The Amber Spyglass*, and decided I couldn't accept it. What Philip Pullman did to Lyra and Will was so awful and wonderful at once that I had to write another book just to right that wrong. Stephen King says in *On Writing* that fantasy became a genre so authors could bring Frodo and Sam back from the Grey Havens; I think that's as good a reason as any.

I grew up. I got better. I went to college and learned to use a sword and sail a ship and wrote a thesis on reading fantasy ecologically and how it can influence our views of the real world. And now, at last, I'm trying to become an author myself.

My serial, The Clockwork Raven, is also hosted on its own website at theclockworkraven.wordpress.com. It's also supported through Patreon, at patreon.com/samchapmanserials--with a small pledge, you could unlock extra chapters, bonus material about the world, new artwork, and much more.