Name Jessica Rydill Role Author | ||
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Books Children of the Shaman, The Glass Mountain, Children of the Shaman B Book Clb Nominations Locus Award for Best First Novel | ||
Education King's College, Cambridge | ||
Jessica Rydill is a British fantasy author from the West Country. She was born in 1959. She studied at King's College, Cambridge and the College of Law, working as a solicitor for 13 years. Her travels have provided some of the inspiration for her writing. She was a founder member of the Write Fantastic writers' group together with Fantasy authors Sarah Ash, Chaz Brenchley, Mark Chadbourn, Juliet E. McKenna, the late Deborah J. Miller, Stan Nicholls, Kari Sperring, Freda Warrington and Ian Whates.
Her interests include collecting Asian ball-jointed dolls, Richard III, Sasha dolls, myth, and East European music. Her short story My Brother Jonathan was short-listed for the Ian St James award in 1999 and she appears in The New Writer magazine Roll of Honour.
Her first novel, Children of the Shaman, was published by Orbit in 2001, and was short-listed for the Locus magazine best first novel in 2002. A sequel, The Glass Mountain, appeared in October 2002. A short story, The Anniversary, was published in an anthology printed by NewCon Press in 2010 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of The Write Fantastic.
Rydill's third novel, Malarat was published in eBook format on 1 May 2013, and e-format versions of the first two novels followed in 2014 and 2015.
All three books are being reissued by small press Kristell Ink Publishing, together with a fourth, Winterbloom. They have cover art by award-winning artist Daniele Serra and internal illustrations by Evelinn Enoksen. Children of the Shaman was published on 5th May 2017 through Amazon.
Her sister Sarah Ash, author of the Tears of Artamon trilogy and the Tide Dragons series, is also a fantasy novelist.