Maria V Snyder is one of my favourite authors (in case you hadn’t guessed by my What I’m Reading blog posts :P) and so today I’m spotlighting her.
She crafted the worlds of Sitia and Ixia, the former a wild land of magic, the latter a strict military regime, in which her Study/Glass series takes place. Majority of her books in that universe follow Yelena Zaltana, but expand later to include the POV’s of Opal Cowan and many of Yelena’s friends. The shifting narrative perspectives helps bring new life to her worlds so nothing ever gets stagnated. They’re really excellent reads full of magic, mystery, action and romance.
She has quite a few other books such as Inside Out, Storm Watcher and the Healer’s Trilogy. I feel like a bad fan that I haven’t read them yet, but they’re on my list.
She’s a very hands on learner and takes a plethora of classes to educate herself along with her characters. Many of the skills that her characters display are ones that Maria has gone out of her way to learn so she can be accurate in their representation. It’s something I would definitely love to do since although the internet is certainly helpful, there are some things it just can’t teach you.
She teaches at her alma mater, Seton Hill University and it’s beyond tempting to move and enroll just to take her class, but that’s not especially practical. I will have to content myself with reading her books 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
-Erin