Patricia S. Bowne
Fantasy Fiction and Academic Satire
••reach me at pat.bowne@gmail.com••
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 at Osyth. I've sold eight stories set in the Academy and three novels, had one story reprinted in Year's Best Fantasy, and received honorable mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. If you like the Royal Academy, let me know and add your acquaintance to the rewards of writing!
You can contact me at pat.bowne@gmail.com.
