Hayley Rae Johnson

I grew up in a one-room house with solar power and no running water in the Rocky Mountains with my mom, dad and brother until I was about ten years old. My dad then built the 'big house', just ten yards away, but we had our own rooms and running water ? We were 20 minutes from town but would always make it to the library so that we could check out a stack of books for me. When I ran out of books to read, my parents would tell me to go play outside. Unlike the grassy yard of the suburban house I live in now, my yard was the untamed mountainside with a grove of Aspen trees that I would spend hours in; playing with the fairies, honing my witchcraft with wands I made from fallen twigs and creating fantastical adventures.

When the snows came (like the blizzard in the early 2000s that dumped 9 feet on us and kept us stuck on the mountain for almost two week!), I was encouraged to write my own stories. And I DID!

Among dozens and dozens of stories, I wrote my first 'book' at the age of 8. My office is filled with notebooks and loose-leaf papers that have scribbles all over them: maps, sketches, drawings of characters, notes, word maps, and more organized chaos.

Today, I am living my dream of being a fantasy author. Bringing strong women into every novel, magic without boundaries and men that still believe in chivalry.