Tom Sechrist

Tom Sechrist has been an aspiring author since the tender age of 13 when his explosive temper drove him to smash his fist into one of the brick columns in the courtyard of his school.

As he sat in the nurses' station with an ice pack on his badly swollen fist, one of Tom's most influential teachers walked in. Ms. Joynelle Pearson looked at his hand and then gave Tom the piece of advice that sent him down the path of becoming a published author, "You really should redirect that temper of yours into something a little less violent...and painful. Why don't you try writing short stories about whatever it was that angered you?"

Those initial short stories were very violent and, shall we say, messy. The therapy worked though and soon Tom had a large assortment of short stories. He found that he enjoyed writing. It was an escape for him, a way to suspend reality even if it was only for a short time.

From those first stories sprang longer and longer stories with more detail and more characterization. Before long Tom was writing full length novel manuscripts, but he never believed his work was good enough and he never tried to get any of those early titles published.

By the time Tom entered college, he had a total of 13 finished manuscripts. These were done in the days before computers and had been typed on a typewriter (the first book was written on an old Underwood upright typewriter. A true MANUAL typewriter). Sadly, a dorm room fire destroyed all 13 manuscripts. It was a hard blow and it took Tom a long time to take up writing again or even to read a book. Eventually the "fever" came back and he began writing again.

In 1998 Tom took his first foray into the Fantasy genre with the creation of "The Devenshire Chronicles", a body of work that has obsessed, possessed, and oppressed him for the better part of 13 years (and by far his favorite). While Tom has written many manuscripts in many genres (westerns, thriller/mysteries and science fiction works), it is "The Devenshire Chronicles" that will be Tom's first published work. It will mark his entrance into a world he has watched from the sidelines for years.

Tom now lives in Plano, Texas with his wife, Renee. He has two children from a previous marriage, four children from his current marriage, six grandchildren (four on Earth and two in heaven), four cats, a dog that could pass as a small horse, and a bird named Elvis ("Thank you, thank you very much.").