The TL;DR Version
Rycroft lives in Pittsburgh, PA (the Steel City) with her spouse and a growing collection of Funko bobbleheads. She’s been writing stories almost as long as she’s been a reader.
The Longer Story
As a kid, she was obsessed with Star Wars, Star Trek, and all things sword and magic at a time when most girls were reading Anne of Green Gables and the Babysitter’s Club. As a teenager, Rycroft tore through the Katherine Kerr’s Deverry series, then Forgotten Realms, then Dragonlance.
Because none of her friends liked fantasy, she made her parents read a lot of the same books, just to have someone else who knew what she was talking about when she went on about halflings, halfbloods, and sellswords.
By the time George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones was first published, Rycroft was in art school, nursing the seeds of an idea for her own fantasy works. The seeds grew into a book after the death of her interest in art school and rebirth as an English Major Years later Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series opened a whole new can of worms for this reader and writer.
What Do You Mean ‘on the Spectrum’?
Rycroft discovered late in life that she is on the autism spectrum, which means she can tell you the full specs for her Garmin smartwatch and the differences between it and other models, but she can never eat lunch on time, because she’s too busy building her imaginary worlds.
After several unofficial assessments all said the same thing as those around her, suddenly a lot of her life experiences made sense. She’s begun getting involved in the autism awareness and autism acceptance movements.
A Short List of Recent Favorite Books
Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic – I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but this one popped up on my library’s website when a lot of people were telling me I should get assessed and I was starting to suspect they were right, and I really am on the spectrum. I figured the universe also agreed, so I gave it the read. I loved it, and not just because Michael McCreary’s experiences so closely paralleled incidences in my own life. I wholly recommend it for anyone interested in learning more about people with Autism Spectrum Disorders, from the perspective of someone on the spectrum.
Senlin Ascends – This is a really quirky kind of a fantasy novel. It’s not really a traditional sword and sorcery, though there’s magic of a different kind. You can see my Goodreads review of it here.
Red Sister – If you’re looking for another Prince of Thorns heavy, bloody type fantasy, this isn’t it. It’s even more enjoyable for the fact it isn’t that. It’s a really well-developed world, plot, and characters I really want to keep reading about.
Writing in a Dark Room 