Terry Brooks Biography

With over 12 million books in print, Terry Brooks has been a seminal force in fantasy fiction for the past twenty years. When his first book, The Sword of Shannara, was published in 1977, it earned Brooks a legion of fans and the novel made publishing history by becoming the first work of fiction to appear on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list. Since then, Brooks has written twelve additional bestselling books. This year, Brooks is celebrating twenty years of continued success by taking his writing to a new level; Running with the Demon is a stunning contemporary fantasy, a page-turner with sleek, spare writing and a dark vision not found in his earlier work.

After twenty years writing epic adventure fantasy, Brooks is very excited about doing something so different. Set in Hopewell, a fictitious Midwestern town, Running with the Demon grew, in part, from Brooks' desire to write about his home town. "I wanted to write a fantasy that would say something about the nature of my childhood and what it was like growing

up in a small town, and about how magic exists for children," he explains. Terry Brooks was born in Sterling, Illinois in 1944, and spent the first 40 years of his life there; Sterling is the prototype for Hopewell, the setting of Running with the Demon. Brooks received an undergraduate degree in English Literature from Hamilton College in New York State, and a law degree from Washington & Lee University in Virginia. He practiced law for many years, working during the day and writing at night. He wrote his first four books on that schedule, leaving law to write full time in 1986.

Brooks explains his decision to become a writer by saying that "writing is a profession that chooses you. It catapults you directly into a twilight zone of compulsive behavior, and you write because you have to write. One choice you have is your subject matter. I write fantasy because it gives me a bigger canvas to paint on."

Terry Brooks is the author of thirteen previous bestselling titles, written in two wildly popular series, Shannara and Magic Kingdom.

Brooks and his wife Judine live in Seattle, along with a cat. They have a second home in Hawaii, where Brooks is active with the prestigious Maui Writer's Conference.

About This Biography
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