Rod Warren

Rod Warren has been a professional graphic designer

and illustrator for over 40 years. He has

worked for ad agencies, print shops, screen printers,

and newspapers, just to name a few. He has designed

greeting cards, t-shirts, book illustrations, magazine

cartoons, and a comic strip. He has also been the editor

and production manager for two magazines-The

Bakersfield Lifestyle Magazine and Cosmetech. After

working at the Bakersfield Lifestye magazine, he hired

on the Bakersfield Californian newspaper where he

did feature illustrations, infographics, and political

cartoons, some which were published in a book called

Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year.

His interest in writing began when he took a creative

writing class at Rick’s College in Idaho, where he

created short stories and poems for his assignments.

His efforts rewarded him with an ‘A’ in the class and

his interest in creative writing began. Transferring to

BYU after a year at Rick’s, he took humanities classes

and political science classes. After taking a Roman

history class, he read about the Praetorian Guard and

wanted to find out more about the elite military unit

as a research project, but his studies didn’t allow him

to pursue it at that time.

He graduated in 2001 from BYU with a B.A. in political

science and shortly after began reading books

and writings of current and ancient historians about

the Praetorian Guard. After several years of taking

notes, he decided to write a historical fiction novel on

the topic. Living in Springville, Utah at the time, Rod

began putting together his first novel, entitled The

Praetorian and the Emperor’s List. His background in

the army and in law enforcement helped tremendously

in military and enforcement protocol.

Rod and his wife, Shauna, then moved to Paradise,

California to be closer to their son and grandchildren.

Rod finished the work on his novel there and began to

self promote it at local bookstores and book fairs. He

joined a writing club called the North State Writers,

a branch of the California Writers Club and attended

several meetings. He also won a Pinnacle Book

Achievement Award for his story.

Rod was impressed to write a sequel to the first book

entitled The Praetorian and the Vipers. Deciding to

do a trilogy, he wrote a sequel to the second, entitled

The Praetorian and the Emperor’s Madness.

All three Praetorian books were self-published and

printed by IngramSpark.

In 2018, a fire destroyed most of the town of Paradise,

including Rod and Shauna’s home. Fortunately, they

were able to evacuate with just what they could pack

in their car and decided to relocate to Saint George

where they live now.

Wanting to take his mind off the fire and all that he

and his wife had lost, Rod created a comic strip about

characters who lived in a small beach community by

the sea he called Pickle Beach and designed a website

called picklebeachcomics.com. After creating over 200

comic strips, he compiled them into a book called

Pickle Beach Comics.

A year later, he decided to take up another writing

project, this time political satire. He put together

a short story about a businessman named Donald

Trumpet, who becomes President of the United States

and has to deal with opposition at every turn. Rod

entitled it, Who Let This Guy in the White House?

Finding a few poems he wrote while taking the creatibe

writing class at Ricks College, Rod decided to write

more poetry and put together a collection of short

whimsical and spiritual verse he entitled In The World,

Not Of The World.