About the Author

Hello all!

I’m Shanna Terese, aspiring sci-fi and fantasy author.

Some stuff about me…

So, I have two Masters degrees from a wonderful little seminary in Evanston Illinois.

The first is in Christian Education, which is more or less similar to an M.Div (Master’s in Divinity, which is the degree that most pastors have. Yup, your pastor probably has a Master’s degree! Who knew, right?).

The second is an MTS (Master of Theological Studies) focused on the history of the early church. Super fun side-note, I wrote my thesis paper for this degree on the development of the concept of hell in early Christian theology. So, yeah, I kind of spent a year of my life in hell…

And what do I do now with all this higher education?

Well, I write coming of age fantasy and sci-fi novels, naturally.

What I write

Basically, I write coming of age fantasy and science fiction, focused on self-discovery, and grounded in the idea that life is a journey of faith. I am a religious person, and there are religious undertones in all of the stories that I tell.

It really is this simple: I write the kind of books I want to read. Particularly those I wanted to read when I was younger.

As a child, I was tired of good books that just did not talk about religion and more tired of religious books that felt like one long ‘come to Jesus’ sales pitch.

I wanted more books like The Chronicles of Narnia, that affirmed my faith, were entertaining but thought-provoking, and did NOT constantly try to sell me on a religion that I had already bought into.

So few books like that existed.

So I started to write my own.

Twenty years later, and I’m still writing coming of age fantasy and science fiction, focused on self-discovery. Much of it technically falls into the category of Young Adult, but I do not believe that coming of age experiences are limited to the adolescent years. We are all, I think, in a constant state of self-discovery. This is what it means to be alive, and why faith is a journey, not a one-time decision.

What you will NOT find in my books is…

…preachiness, biblical absolutism, black and white thinking, or altar calls. I do not write these things. That is my pledge to every little girl out there like me.

I believe that even sci-fi and fantasy stories need to stay as true to life as possible. Maybe that sounds counterintuitive to you. But, to this end, beneath the dragon fights, intergalactic wars, and reality-bending magic…

I write stories about people who, fantastical circumstances aside, must work out themselves and their beliefs like every real person out there – through the ups and downs, highs and lows, of living.

For more about why I wrote what I write, check out this post.

Some more trivia

When not writing novels – or, you know, 120-page research papers on hell – I enjoy the usual:

• friends,
• family,
• music,
• movies,
• drawing
• doting on pet ferrets,
• working a dusty day job for a non-profit retail chain (you may have heard of it – name starts with a G…),
• and memorizing entire chapters of the bible – in the original Greek and Hebrew, of course.

(Yes, I can recite the entirety of Genesis chapters 1-2 in the Hebrew language in which they were originally written – Now on to John chapter 1 in Greek…)

But my true love is and always will be storytelling.

If you’ve made it to this page, you’ve likely read – or at least seen – one or more of my books. Thank you so much for your interest in my work! I hope you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them, and that they bring something good, entertaining, and meaningful into your busy days.

I would love to give you a free welcome gift. If you haven’t already, you can find it here.

And you can check out all the books I have to offer here.

Finally, please do feel free to contact me with any questions or thoughts anytime (because email boxes never have to close down for the night)!

Sincerely,

Shanna Terese

Email: shanna@shannateresebooks.com