Writing Credits and Honors

Writing came soon in Vera Nazarian's life — as soon as she figured out the English language, she started to write in it, wrote and dreamed all through elementary, junior high and high school, and sold her first short story at the age of 17 to the second volume of Marion Zimmer Bradley's popular DAW anthology series Sword and Sorceress.

Since then she has published numerous works of short fiction in anthologies and magazines such as the Sword and Sorceress and Darkover anthology series edited by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, bestselling author of the classic Arthurian novel THE MISTS OF AVALON (recently made into a TNT original mini-series starring Julianna Margulies and Anjelica Huston) who became her editor-mentor over the years, THE AGE OF REASON edited by Kurt Roth, OUTSIDE THE BOX edited by Lou Anders, BEYOND THE LAST STAR edited by Sherwood Smith, STRANGE PLEASURES #2 edited by Paul Barnett, LORDS OF SWORDS edited by Daniel E. Blackston, BEST NEW ROMANTIC FANTASY #2 edited by Paula Guran, MZBFM, Talebones, On-Spec, Visionair SF, Maelstrom SF, Colonies SF, Jabberwocky, Fantasy Magazine, and has seen her work translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Czech, Hebrew, and Hungarian.

Her debut novel, a mythic philosophical fantasy of many layers, DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE (on the 2002 Nebula Awards® Preliminary Ballot for Best Novel) was published in May 2002 by World Fantasy Award-winning Wildside Press, and her second novel, an epic fantasy about a world without color, LORDS OF RAINBOW, was published in March 2003.

Both novels were nominated for the Spectrum Awards — in 2003 and in 2004.

Her first collection, SALT OF THE AIR, spanning work from 1985 to 2005, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe, was published by Prime Books / Wildside in September 2006.

Her limited edition novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass, with an introduction by Charles de Lint, was released by PS Publishing in October 2005.

Another limited edition novella The Duke in His Castle is forthcoming in a signed illustrated collector's art edition from Papaveria Press in 2007.

Professional Affiliations

She is an active member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Citizenship

After many years without a country, Vera Nazarian is proud to be a United States Citizen.

Themes

Ancient myth, moral fables, eclectic philosophy, and her Armenian and Russian ethnic heritage play a strong part in all her work, combining the essences of things and places long gone into a rich evocation of wonder.

Languages also figure prominently in her experience. Vera is a native speaker of Russian and Armenian, is fluent in Spanish, and has studied Mandarin Chinese and German. And yet, English is her language of choice when it comes to writing.

Current Work in Progress

Vera Nazarian is currently at work on a number of book-length projects:

• COBWEB BRIDE — Standalone lyrical dark fantasy novel with romantic elements of the Persephone myth, about death's ultimatum to the world. Death, in the form of a grim Spaniard comes to claim his bride, and until one such is found, in a single time-stopping moment all dying stops, and there is no relief for the mortally-wounded and the terminally-ill. While kings and emperors send their expeditions to search for a suitable bride for death, while armies of the undead wage an endless war, while treacheries abound and murdered lovers find themselves locked in the realm of the living, one small village girl, Percy -- an unwanted, ungainly middle daughter -- is faced with the responsibility of granting her dying grandmother the desperate release she needs, and as a result becomes embroiled in a pivotal quest to Death's own holding in the deepest forests of the North.

• Margot Phoenix Quartet — Four-book kickass paranormal romance series about female superheroine Margot Phoenix, an Elemental with powers over the four elements Air, Earth, Water, and Fire (not to mention hydrogen, oxygen, copper, zinc, and everything else in the Periodic Table), and who — like Buffy, Anita Blake, and Betsy Taylor — fights supernatural evil, mundane corruption, and any occurrences of dim wit all around the globe, at the same time as she fights to win the heart of Julian Kilburne, the elusive man of her dreams. Book one, currently in progress, is MARGOT PHOENIX RISING. Book two will be MARGOT PHOENIX IN FLIGHT, book three MARGOT PHOENIX IN FLAMES and book four MARGOT PHOENIX IN STONE.

• DEOGASM — Standalone fantasy about a world in the thrall of a Deity that experiences a cataclysmic orgasm once a millennium, and which comes as a natural disaster.

• The Adventures of Ruricca NoOnesDaughter — Fantasy trilogy chronicling the magical adventures of her popular waif-wisewoman character Ruricca NoOnesDaughter. Book one, currently in progress, is THE HANGED WOMAN.

• Airealm — Science fantasy trilogy about a world of no land, only sky, and the people who live on the floating debris in the Boundlessness — and where the Power of Up and Down (the force of gravity) is manipulated like magic. Books One, Two and Three are AIREALM, FLUCTUATION, and STABILITY.

• GODS OF THE COMPASS ROSE — Another book in the Compass Rose ancient fantasy world milieu.

• LADY OF MONCHROME — Standalone "sequel" to LORDS OF RAINBOW which will make it a duology. Unlike the epic-scale grand fullfillment theme of LORDS OF RAINBOW, the sensibility here is that of the homecoming last portion of Jane Eyre and The Odyssey in a high-fantasy world, a milieu dissonant with exquisite decandence and soaring hope.

• Pantheon — Near-future SF trilogy about global politics and human evolution, set in in the same universe as her acclaimed story "Rossia Moya" which made the 2000 Nebula Awards® Preliminary Ballot and received an Honorable Mention from Gardner Dozois in his YEAR'S BEST SF, Volume 17. Book One is IDIOTS PANTHEON, Book Two is LOVERS PANTHEON, and Book Three is DEMONS PANTHEON.

Her official website can be found at www.veranazarian.com.