User:Jmwalsh4772/Claudia Hall Christian

Claudia H. Christian writes, gardens, and keeps bees with her husband in Denver Colorado. As a writer, psychotherapist, and trauma specialist; Claudia's work revolves around relationships and her plots often touch on issues of traumatic experiences. A proponent of Creative Commons licensing, she distributes her novels and her serial fiction in print and on the World Wide Web.

EARLY YEARS

From an early age, Claudia H. Christian had always planned to be a writer. She was going to take the world by storm until she lost her college funding and met an English Professor that was less than supportive of her writing. He battered her for a semester then almost didn’t pass her, leaving her to question her ability as a writer and story teller.

Hanging up her writing hate, Claudia transfer to UC Berkeley where she studied Biochemistry. She took a couple of literature classes but never wrote another paper until graduate school. Her teachers marveled at her capacity as a writer and yet she still refused to return to her first love, writing fiction.

It wasn't until Claudia returned to Denver that she began writing on a regular basis again. For three and a half years, She wrote a self help column called “Claudia’s Corner” in a local throw away. She continued to write self help, inspirational articles and newsletters for the next six years for the Open Grove, a site she founded.

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

Along with being a writer and the founder of the Open Grove, Claudia H. Christian is a beekeeper and a gardener. Claudia has recently participated in a 5K run in the Denver area and is training for the Las Vegas Rock and Roll Marathon in December 2009.

THE DENVER CEREAL (2009 - )

As a serial romantic fiction, Denver Cereal continues a chapter a week at www.denvercereal.com.

THE FEY (published... 2009)

At it’s most basic level, The Fey is about a young woman, Alexandra Hargreaves, who was cruising along in her life. She had a wonderful job, a great team of people to work with, a handsome devoted husband and a wonderful home. In the wink of an eye, everything changes. We meet her at the moment of that change. And everything just gets worse.

Alex is Hard working, loyal, loving, kind, generous, willing, mysterious, intelligent, complex, capable, relational, confident, strong, fragile hearted, womanly, cold and calculating when necessary, warm and loving to family and friends, attractive, wounded, monozygotic male/female twin, funny, playful, popular, deadly, bright, family oriented, Catholic, unique, fairy, someone you would want to know.

Over the course of my life, she's known a lot of people who’ve served in the armed forces. These people’s added to the texture of The Fey by adding quirky details of military life. For example, Chapter Seven begins with Alex telling Erin stories about peeing from helicopters. This story came from a conversation with a female Navy SEAL. Imagine, how do women pee from helicopters? The flights are long. The helicopters don’t have toilets aboard.

Alex Hargreaves is written as a reflection of these strong, capable, relational, warm, loving, and kind women.

One of the more appealing aspects of The Fey is that the book is not all action, nor is it just a drama … it also has romance intertwined throughout the story. A wide range of people can read and enjoy The Fey without having to endure constant killing or drawn-out romance scenes at any point.

We get to meet and fall in love with many people in Alex’s story. Some of these characters, despite knowing what we know from reading The Fey, are characters we would want to know more about.

The Fey is serialized at AlextheFey.com. The novel will run through the end of the year, then will be removed. Learning to Stand will take it’s place in February, 2010.

UPCOMING RELEASES

The second book in the Alex The Fey series, Learning to Stand, is currently in its final revisions. The third book, Who I Am, is in first draft form. There are eight total books outlined. However, as long as these characters have something to say, Claudia is happy to write about them.

PUBLISHING

Interested in expanding the new printing model, Claudia founded Cook Street Publishing.Books are marketed person to person, one book at a time. Thanks to online forums and social networking sites, such as Plurk, Facebook and Twitter, word of mouth marketing has been highly successful. Plurk, in particular, has drawn wonderfully supportive people who have helped to market the books.