Patricia S. Bowne

Hello, and pleased to meet you!

I've been writing the Royal Academy at Osyth stories for over ten years now. They say to write what you know, and I know the academic environment.

Since the age of 3, I have been hanging around university science departments. I've spent time collecting fishes and invertebrates, cataloguing museum specimens, putting up educational displays (some of which involved live rattlesnakes), creating scientific illustrations, supervising student field work in lakes, rivers, and on coral reefs, assisting on deep-sea sampling cruises and in a giant clam farm, taking the jaws out of a 7-foot shark, and picking through piles of dead fish from Alberta to Taiwan. In the process, I've accumulated a B.Sc in Biology, B.A. in Humanities, M.S in Marine Biology, and Ph.D. in Zoology.

I now work at a small college in the Midwest, where I've added experience in the less fishy aspects of academic life. I've worked there for over twenty years including a 6-year stint as a Dean, during which time we built a new building -- an experience which inspired my most successful story, 'Want's Master'.

Though I always wanted a small-college teaching position, when I got one I missed the excitement of a large university. Rather than go hang around the local university, making myself dissatisfied and neglecting my day job, I created my own: the Royal Academy of the Arcane Arts and Sciences. I've sold seven stories set in the Academy, and three novels. The first one, ADVICE FROM PIGEONS, is available now from Double Dragon Publishing. Watch for A LOVESOME THING and SWEPT AND GARNISHED coming soon! In the meantime, check out my website and join the discussion at the world's only blog for the discussion of modern academic magic.