Daniel Stride (also known as Dan) is a long-time fantasy reader and all-round geek, having fallen in love with The Lord of the Rings aged nine (he still thinks The Silmarillion is the best book ever written).

He spent far too long at University, where he accumulated multiple degrees in-between lobbying politicians and fighting for doomed causes. But he wasn’t really a career student – honest – he even had a respectable nine years working for the local newspaper. And now he’s a qualified lawyer and security guard…

Apart from reading, writing, and teaching himself foreign languages, he’s a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, with a taste for reconstructing medieval skaldic verse. His only true weakness is chocolate. And cats. But not chocolate cats, because the fur would get all sticky.

Dan lives in Dunedin, New Zealand. He is currently working on increasing his number of short story publications, having recently completed his second novel, Old Phuul.