Pilar Stewart

What I Do: Since 2014, I have been working as a speculative fiction writer-in-training. I am writing an Industrial Era coming-of-age fantasy complete with talking rats, sewers that go too far down into the dark, and fight clubs. I am concurrently learning about the speculative fiction writers' community through online critique groups, twitter, and a pile of reading.

What I Used to Do: I was a full-time assistant and researcher for Roya Hakakian, an Iranian-American memoirist and intellectual. (I still work ad hoc for Ms. Hakakian). I have a Masters in Library Science and a B.A. in English. With over twenty years work experience in academia and the book industry, I am a proven clerical ninja / Girl Friday (my Linkedin profile provides more details).

My Bio: I moved twenty plus times before the age of 18. Thus I have informed, but perhaps skewed, opinions about the U.S. West, East and South (I only saw the Midwest from car windows and, therefore, cannot comment). In my early twenties, I spent two years as a Mormon. I used my time at B.Y.U. to get a degree and come out. After wandering in the Utah deserts, I came home to the East Coast, woo'd my wife by discussing DeFoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year," and converted to Judaism.

Interests: I read as if I need books to breathe. Literature, sci-fi, fantasy, and mysteries are favorite genres. Favorite authors range from Herman Melville to Marilynne Robinson to Max Gladstone to Scott Lynch. My geek street cred is strong: I was 13 when Star Wars came out; I read and re-read my copies of the "Chronicles of Narnia" so much that the paper covers became like soft leather. I flipped the scoreboard on the Atari 5200's Pac-Man. And I can beat Halo CE on legendary using only the M6D pistol. *mic drop*