Bio

A. Corrin first realized she wanted to be a writer when she was in middle school. The stress, peer pressure, her mother’s battle with cancer, and an impending major back surgery in the eighth grade drove her desperately to seek a distraction. Writing became an escape for her, and she soon found that she wanted to create that escape for others, creating realms of adventure through her stories, starting with Jonathan: Prince of Dreams, the first volume in her epic fantasy trilogy. 

An interesting writing quirk of Corrin’s is that she handwrites all her stories on lined paper before typing them up, loving the feeling of the pen in her hand and holding a sheaf of paper covered in words that she’s written—sometimes up to 800 pages!

Corrin is inspired by fantasy fiction films and novels like the works of C.S. Lewis, Richard Adams, Markus Zusak, D.J. MacHale, Christopher Paolini, and so many others who have forced her to “think outside the box” and get creative. Non-verbal music has also been a powerful source of inspiration to Corrin, listening to classical music or movie scores, so that she can coast along wherever her imagination takes her.

To Corrin, a good story is one that transports the reader and gives them pause to consider their own faults and strengths as a human being in a way that doesn’t lecture or scold. A good story is thought-provoking, and when a reader has finished it and closes the book, a pang of emotion can be felt similar to that when bidding farewell to a dear friend. But a truly outstanding story is one that you will probably someday return to and read all over again.

Corrin hopes that her young readers are carried away on a grand adventure, driven to reflect on their own identities and, like the characters in Jonathan, consider their own place in the world. Ultimately, she hopes that her book gives readers hope, empathy, and compassion for the souls around them.

When she isn’t writing stories of fantasy, Corrin is a schoolteacher who aims to encourage a love of reading and writing in her young students. She shows them that writing is not merely a means of taking others through a looking-glass into a fantastic world of heroes, villains, joy, and beauty, but a mirror through which we can examine ourselves and discover our own shortcomings and strengths. 

Corrin loves to draw, play piano, learn a few phrases of Gaelic, and do creative worldbuilding. She lives in a small town in Washington state with her border collie named Cara (Gaelic for “friend”) and a tuxedo-kitty named Duchess. Duchess is her writing companion, and she prefers to hover nearby when Corrin is scribbling away at her clipboard. (An interesting fact is that Corrin’s first non-published book was about talking cats!) Prince of Dreams was Corrin’s YA publishing debut. The sequel, Guardian of Dreams will release in July.