L. Steinworth

The cover of Asunder is a 30x48 inch oil painting painted by author L. Steinworth March 2018. The Vatan Chronicles began March of 2014 when L. Steinworth had been living temporarily in an artist loft in Lowertown, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Originally from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, It had always been a goal of hers to participate in the bi-annual Lowertown Art Crawl since her father took her at the age of six. In 2009, L. Steinworth had money down on a loft, waiting for the counter offer when she decided to pack up and moved two thousand miles away from home to attend Laguna College of Art and Design. For three years she studied fine art and video game art. Feeling the need to satisfy her childhood dream, L. Steinworth drove back to Minnesota with all her recent paintings and rented a 500 square foot artist loft back in Lowertown, Saint Paul for two months. While she was there, she networked with a photographer in the building named Patrick Clancy and asked her cousin Dominic Pitera to model for a shoot in her mother's antique woolen cloak to help express a mood. She can still remember the moment moving Dom’s arm in, telling him to tense his veins, and then smirk to get the reference photo that birthed her main character Alden. The next day L. Steinworth began painting it, desperate to express the passion. A week and a half later, with thirty hours invested, she had painted the 30x48 inch oil ‘Burden’. After that L. Steinworth was inspired to continue exploring this character and discover what his burden was. For two years she played with the idea, let stories play in her mind, designed kingdoms, families, and enemies, all for fun. January 2016 L. Steinworth realized she had the makings of a novel and bought a laptop, Microsoft Word, and began laying out everything she had brewing in her head. She wrote for a year and edited for another. During this time Burden had been a working title of Asunder, using the original painting, Burden, as its cover. However, after completing the story L. Steinworth realized that book one was about the other main character Mayli and her experience. She found model Fran Nardone and hired her for a reference photo to paint from. 'Burden' is now the cover for Book Two of The King's Renegade, Burden.