Author Stories - Author Interviews, Writing Advice, Book Reviews

Stephen Aryan was born in Iran in 1977 and raised in Whitley Bay, on the north east coast of the UK. He has been reading fantasy since a very young age. It started with books by David Eddings, Tolkien, C.S Lewis, Terry Brooks, Ursula le Guin, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and later David Gemmell, who had a huge influence on his work. After graduating university in 1999 he started working in marketing. Around this time he also started submitting his first fantasy novel to agents. In 2013, he submitted his latest novel, Battlemage, to Juliet Mushens. It took Stephen a long time and many struggles to get this far. You can read the full story on a two part blog he wrote called How I Found an Agent Part 1, and How I Found an Agent Part 2. In 2014, Battlemage, was snatched up by Orbit books and subsequently published in 2015. It went on to be published in France, Germany and Russia and was a finalist for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best debut fantasy novel. Battlemage went on to win the inaugural Hell