My first literary ambition was not to write books, but to illustrate them. For
reasons that no longer seem clear to me, I stopped painting and sketching after
high school to pursue a degree in music education, and then a second teaching
area in history, and then studies toward an MBA. My musical preferences lean
toward Renaissance and Celtic, and favorite areas of history include medieval
Europe, the British Isles, and colonial New England. Folklore and mythology have
been lifelong passions, and continue to provide inspiration for my stories. As
for art, well, let's just say that Grandma Moses is one of my role models.
Unlike her, I hope to start painting before I'm eighty. But if the truth must be
told, that doesn't look likely.
Because most of my stories are set in the Forgotten Realms, people often ask me
if I play D&D. The short answer is "No." I know the game mechanics
and the lore, but I've never actually sat down with a fistful of dice, a group
of gamers, and the requisite vat of Mountain Dew. This is not due to lack of
interest, but to the vicissitudes of fate: I came into the hobby at the
venerable age of 29, and have never managed to find my way into a congenial
group of geezer-gamers.
That said, my two sons, Andrew and Sean, are now avid gamers. They help me run
strategy gaming clubs in our local school, and we often kick around ideas for
their home-run D&D campaigns. Gaming and game-related novels have become a
family affair. Andrew is my "trusted reader" and research assistant.
Due to the research he put into the Halruaan trilogy, he knows far more about
necromancy than your average 13-year-old, which is probably, on the whole, a
very good thing. Our family gaming activities range from Magic and military
board games to the usual video games, to more traditional competitive outlets
such as pool, darts, ping-pong, and cut-throat Foozball. We've started building
Warhammer armies and scenery, and perhaps we'll eventually get around to playing!
Various active hobbies help to round out the hours I spend staring at a computer
screen. Our town is blessed with a bike path that meanders for fifteen miles
through small New England towns, past several ponds, and along the bay. I love
to walk, don't mind biking, and despise, but try not to ignore, inline skating.
We've taken up tennis, and are trying, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and
success, to learn golf. Mark Twain was on to something when he called it "a
good walk spoiled". At home we do badminton and croquet. There's a fencing
academy in the next town, and Andrew and I plan to start lessons in the fall. My
favorite activity of late is gardening. If you don't consider that to be
exercise, trying moving around three cubic yards of shredded pine mulch.
Recently I've been dividing my writing time between Halruaan, King Arthur's
realm, and "a galaxy far, far away". I'm writing the twelfth book in
Del Rey's "New Jedi Order" storyline for Star Wars. And I've finally
done a web page (ElaineCunningham.com),
to which I add a bit each month. In addition to information about my books, I've
started developing "reference centers" that provide links to areas of
interest. So far we've got a collection of elf-related sites, a guide to
Renaissance Faires, and links devoted to Arthurian literature and lore.
Work, family activities, and Little League fill most of the 24/7, but I use
stray minutes to work on art-related projects -- the latest is creating
elaborate, "fabric sculpture" dragons -- or to seek out new garden
shops and nurseries, or to practice the piano and brush up on vocal technique. I
also read extensively, omnivorously, and (fortunately) very fast. The result of
multiple interests is that I don't know what "boredom" means. Of
course, I'm not very familiar with "sleep", either, but I'm reasonably
happy with the tradeoff.
Shared worlds, by definition, require a willingness to share, communicate, and
kibbitz. If you've got comments or questions about the stories set in the Realms,
I can be reached at ecunningham@sff.net.
Homepage: ElaineCunningham.com
Blog: Elaine Cunningham
E-Mail: elainecunningham@cox.net
A special 'Thank you' goes to WotC, Inc.
I copied the bio from their database.
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