About

Nic Darling

The average age of a first time novelist is apparently around 36 years old. So, I guess that makes me just a little late to the game. I have been writing for most of my life, so it hasn’t really been for a lack of trying. I’ve apparently just never had quite the right story to tell until now.

I am a little surprised that my first book is a fantasy novel. It isn’t what I imagined writing as an aspiring poet at Syracuse University or when I was teaching at Writers and Books in Rochester, NY, and yet I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. While I read broadly, I always find myself returning to strange worlds and dangerous journeys. I am as easily captured by the idea of mysterious powers and reluctant heroes as I was when I was a kid crouched beneath my covers with a flashlight.

I live and work now in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside of Washington DC. My life is very different from the romanticized life of a writer I imagined when I was younger. I have a beautiful, talented wife, two amazing kids and a big dog. I hardly ever dip into madness or channel the divine.

I do spend a great deal of time writing these days. This story has finally unlocked something I feel I have been fighting against for a long time, and even if it doesn’t go on to publication and great renown, it will remain an important breath of life to a flickering flame that felt near to extinction.