Biography

 

25 words | 50 words | 75 words | 100 words | 150 words | Full bio
Honors and awards | Teaching experience

 

author photo of Marie Brennan
full-size image here
(credit Perry Reichanadter)

25 words

Marie Brennan is the award-winning author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent and other fantasy series. Find her online at swantower.com and on Twitter @swan_tower.

50 words

Marie Brennan is the World Fantasy and Hugo Award-nominated author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent, the Onyx Court, other series, and over sixty short stories. As half of M.A. Carrick, she also writes the Rook and Rose trilogy. Find her online at swantower.com, on Twitter @swan_tower, or on Patreon.

75 words

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for inspiration. She recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to The Night Parade of 100 Demons and the short novel Driftwood. As half of M.A. Carrick, she is also the author of The Mask of Mirrors, the first book of the Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

headshot of Marie Brennan
(credit Perry Reichanadter)

100 words

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for inspiration. She recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to The Night Parade of 100 Demons and the short novel Driftwood. She is the author of the Hugo Award-nominated Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent along with several other series, over sixty short stories, and the New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides; as half of M.A. Carrick, she has written The Mask of Mirrors, first in the epic Rook and Rose trilogy. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

150 words

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for inspiration. She recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to The Night Parade of 100 Demons and the short novel Driftwood. The first book of her Hugo Award-nominated Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent, A Natural History of Dragons, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Her other works include the Doppelganger duology, the urban fantasy Wilders series, the Onyx Court historical fantasies, the Varekai novellas, and over sixty short stories, as well as the New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides. Together with Alyc Helms as M.A. Carrick, she is the author of the upcoming Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with The Mask of Mirrors. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

Full bio

Marie Brennan holds an undergraduate degree in archaeology and folklore from Harvard University and pursued graduate studies in cultural anthropology and folklore at Indiana University before leaving to write full-time. Her academic background fed naturally into her work, providing her with the tools to build fantastical worlds.

Her first series, the Doppelganger duology of Warrior and Witch, came out in 2006. From there she moved to historical fantasy, first with the Onyx Court series (Midnight Never Come (2008), In Ashes Lie (2009), A Star Shall Fall (2010), With Fate Conspire (2011)), spanning three hundred years of London’s history, and then with the acclaimed pseudo-Victorian Memoirs of Lady Trent. The first book of that series, A Natural History of Dragons (2013), was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and won the Prix Imaginales in France for Best Translated Novel; the final book, Within the Sanctuary of Wings (2017), won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Fantasy Novel. The series as a whole was a finalist for both the Hugo Award and the Grand Prix l’Imaginaire.

Brennan is a member of the Book View Café authors’ cooperative, where she has published the Wilders urban fantasies Lies and Prophecy (2012) and Chains and Memory (2016) as well as several short story collections and nonfiction works, including Writing Fight Scenes and the Patreon-supported New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides. Her fondness for role-playing games has led her to write both fiction and setting material for several game lines, including Legend of the Five Rings and Tiny d6. Together with fellow author Alyc Helms as M.A. Carrick, she is the author of the Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with The Mask of Mirrors (2021).

She has taught creative writing to both college students and twelve-year-olds, and has run a number of workshops on topics ranging from worldbuilding to fight scenes to how to perform public readings. When not writing or playing RPGs, she practices photography and shōrin-ryū karate. She lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

 

Honors and Awards

 

Teaching Experience

  • “Playing Well with Others” collaboration workshop, Clarion West (online), May 2022
  • “Getting Your Story Down to Size” workshop, Clarion West (online), September 2022
  • “Historical Research Techniques to Create Believable Speculative Worlds,” Sierra Writers Conference (online), Feb 2022
  • “Faith in Fantasy: Building Believable Religions” workshop, Sirens Conference, Oct 2021
  • “Writing Fight Scenes” workshop, Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers (online), February 2021
  • FOGcon workshop instructor (online), March 2021
  • “Public Readings from A-Z” workshop, Dream Foundry (online), January 2021
  • “Writing Fight Scenes” workshop, Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers (online), October 2020
  • “Building New Worlds: Language” workshop, Clarion West (online), September 2020
  • “New Worlds: Worldbuilding from the Ground Up” workshop, Clarion West (online), May 2020
  • “Building New Worlds: Folk Magic” workshop, Clarion West (online), April 2020
  • “Building New Worlds: Religion” workshop, Clarion West (online), April 2020
  • “Building New Worlds: Language” workshop, Clarion West (online), April 2020
  • “Building New Worlds: Lifeways” workshop, Clarion West (online), March 2020
  • “Writing Fight Scenes” workshop, Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers (online), February 2020
  • “Writing Fight Scenes” workshop, Clarion West, February 2020
  • Cinder Workshop instructor, September 2018
  • “Writing Fight Scenes” workshop, Convolution, September 2017
  • “Writing Fight Scenes” workshop, Gencon, August 2016
  • “Speculative Fiction,” Duke TIP program, Wake Forest University, Summer 2013
  • “Writing Speculative Fiction,” Collins honors program, Indiana University at Bloomington, Spring 2008
  • other teaching experience in topics of archaeology, anthropology, and folklore