About Emily

Emily is a writer, editor, and English professor, in equal parts.

Born and raised in Bakersfield, California, she moved to Ohio to get her PhD in Medieval English literature in 1998. There, she found a love of medieval English Romance and rekindled her love of writing. It was also during her time at the Ohio State University that she met Sarah Joy Adams, a fellow medievalist and eventual co-author of the Eisteddfod Chronicles.

The Wolf and the Nun is a series of novellas set in 12th century England and France, based on the lais of Marie de France, a nun at Shaftesbury Abbey. The historical romance follows Marie and Bleiz Clavret, the lord of Sarum Castle as they fight off demonic forces rising in the court of Henry II. Marie discovers that her mother, mistress to Geoffrey of Anjou , was a Celtic witch, and Marie carries her powers. “Cursed” from his time on crusade, Bleiz finds himself transformed into a wolf three days a week. Together they fight demons and their feelings for each other.

The Eisteddfod Chronicles tell the story of Deor Smithfield, a modern-day woman who travels to the Winter Court of the Fay to find her faerie father, and Rafe, Lord Farringdon, the Sword of Peace and Justice who would do anything, including sacrificing his happiness and his life, to protect the king he loves like a father. As politics and intrigue threaten both their lives, they must come together, not just to save themselves, but to save the whole Winter Court.

Along the way to getting her PhD and becoming a fiction writer, Emily also stumbled into editing, first taking a job editing erotica, and then working with John G. Hartness to edit The Big Bad and The Big Bad II, a short story collection that put the villains center stage. From there, she worked on two successful weird western anthologies, the Weird Wild West and Lawless Lands with Misty Massey and Margaret McGraw. Emily will join forces with Margaret again, for the most recent anthology, Predators in Petticoats.

Finally, Emily’s scholarship focuses on medieval English romance: tales of knights and ladies, kings and queens, monsters and fairies—with quests and battles, true love and villainy, everything that makes fantasy wonderful. Early publications focused on crusade romances like The Siege of Jerusalem and Richard Coer de Lyon. Her current scholarship examines the links between medieval romance and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, one of the most famous and successful of all modern fantasy series. Her co-edited collection of essays, Terry Pratchett’s Ethical Worlds will be out in 2020 from McFarland Books.

Outside of her work as a teacher, scholar, editor, and writer, she enjoys television, film, the occasional video game, and books. She is an avid Carolina Hurricanes hockey fan, along with her spouse. Finally, she is the owner of three precious rambunctious cats, who keep her on her toes.

Fiction

The Wolf and the Nun

• The Wolf in the Cloister

• The Enchanted Rose

• The Lai of the Wolf

• An Honorable Love (Late 2022)

The Eisteddfod Chronicles

• Changeling’s Fall

• Winter’s Heir

• Traitor’s Spring

• Summer’s Regent (Spring 2022)

• A Queen for All Seasons (2023)

Edited Anthologies

• Predators in Petticoats

• Lawless Lands: Tales from the Weird Frontier

• Tales from the Weird Wild West

• The Big Bad and the Big Bad II

Short Stories

• “Only the Young Die Good” in Tales from the Old Black Ambulance

• “The Last Two People on Earth” in Athena’s Daughters II

• “The Circus” in Cinched

• “The House on Cherry Hill” in The Big Bad II

• “The Wicked Witch and the White Knight” in The Big Bad

• “Form 99B” Drafthorse: A Journal of Work and no Work"

• “Gustav’s Mars” in Flash Fiction Online