Tricia Sullivan was born in 1968 in New Jersey, USA and has been writing stories since the age of seven. She attended Music Program Zero at Bard College under the guidance of composer and philosopher Benjamin Boretz, receiving a B.A. in 1990. She also holds an M.A. in Special Education from Columbia University. She wrote her first novel, Lethe, while teaching secondary school in New York City, but by the time the book was published she had moved to London. Her science fiction novels include the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Dreaming In Smoke, Double Vision, Sound Mind, Someone to Watch Over Me, and the British Science Fiction and Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated novels Lightborn and Maul. She also wrote an epic fantasy trilogy under the pseudonym Valery Leith. Her works have been translated into seven languages and praised by prominent critics. Tricia has a longstanding interest in martial arts, has herself trained for many years and now administers the mixed martial arts website of her partner, martial artist Steve Morris. Currently she is raising three children while writing and studying physics and mathematics full time with the Open University.