Jim Baen's Universe

Authors | Wen Spencer

Wen Spencer writes:

All about me? I find this a bewildering idea, since I'm fairly boring considering I'm not an alien or have saved the world. Friends contend, however, that I was raised by wolves. I was born on April 16, 1963. I was raised on a farm in Southwestern Pennsylvania, in the small town of Evans City. My family has been there for generations. My grandmother had been born on the farm that my parents are still living on. And yes, most of the family is buried in the Evans City Cemetery on a high hill overlooking the town.

I lived there with my parents, grandmother, three sisters, a rotating crop of foster kids, and an unlikely assortment of animals. (Mink, pheasants, quail, turkeys???) Looking back, it seems as if my sisters and I totally missed out on the idea that we were girls. We could outrun any kid our age. Out fight a pack of boys. And in tackle football, take down older kids that played on teams. We were mean little buggers, in the nicest possible way. For example, we didn't pick on girls, although we routinely beat the snot out of boys.

I went to Evans City Elementary, then Seneca Valley High School, and graduated near the top ten percent of my class. I met my husband in my senior year. He was my first boyfriend and I wasn't totally sure what to do with one. Have to admit that I agreed to go steady just to find out what it was like. I figured that if I didn't like him, I could dump him easily enough. For my husband, though, it was true love! (That did come later for me but at first it was the sheer novelty of the experience.)

After growing up in a small town, I wanted to attend one of the colleges in Pittsburgh and get the big city experience. (Yeah, you New Yorkers, go ahead and laugh.) I attended the University of Pittsburgh at their Oakland campus. My husband followed me to Pitt, and we dated throughout college. (And yes, I did fall madly in love with him in time.) At sometime, we just started saying "when we get married???" One day, while waiting outside of his math class, I turned to him and said "you know, you've never really asked me to marry you." Smart boy dropped to one knee right there and proposed. Fall term, 1984, either on a Monday or a Wednesday (the two days he had that class.) He only had money enough for an engagement ring -- or a modem with the theory he could get better grades at school. My engagement modem is in the attic. (Yes, I tend to be a laidback person, why do you ask?)

We got married July 6, 1985. In the next few years we lived in Oakland, Bloomfield, Bellevue and finally bought a house in Avalon. In 1992, we had our only child, Zachary. In 1999, my husband's company closed their Pittsburgh offices and we moved to Massachusetts. Over the last twenty years, we've had our shares of ups and downs, but we're doing very well indeed now.

While I wanted to be a writer from a very young age, I spent most of my life writing only when inspiration hit me. In the 1990s, however, I finally decided to commit the daily effort and write even when I wasn't inspired. My first attempt at a novel was so rough that I've never been able to salvage it. My second attempt earn glowing rejections from dozens of agents and publishers. My third attempt was ALIEN TASTE, which not only sold, but won the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel.

Visit web sites at: www.wenspencer.com or http://www.spellcaster.org/alpha/

Protection Money Full Story From: Tommy Chang had no sympathies for the humans of Pittsburgh. Every time he heard someone complaining about how dangerous the city had become with the war between the elves and the oni, he wanted to punch the speaker in the face.

For Blue Sky Full Story From: Two weeks after Pittsburgh became permanently stranded on Elfhome, the war between the elves and the oni reached John Montana's gas station. John had been greasing the CV joint of a Honda he had up on the rack when the bell on the pumps chimed, announcing someone had pulled up for gas. He listened for the sound of his little brother's feet moving across the ceiling above him, but could only hear the rumble of rock music. He ducked out from under the Honda, walked to the old fireman pole that dropped down from their apartment, and yelled, "Hey! We've got a customer down here!"