Douglas A. Burton is a speaker, author, and expert storyteller whose work depicts heroic figures and their deeper connection to the human experience. He grew up in what he describes as “the heroic boyhood culture of late Generation X” that has gone mainstream around the world. Doug blogs about heroes, heroines, and villains in pop culture and believes that fiction does much more than merely entertain us. He also shares strategies with fellow writers for writing compelling heroic characters in fiction. Burton’s forthcoming novel, Far Away Bird, which centers on the early life of Byzantine Empress Theodora, won the 2019 Manuscript Content for Historical Fiction from the Writers’ League of Texas as well as Historical Fiction Book of the Year (gold medal) and Best Debut Novel in Historical Fiction (bronze medal) from the Coffee Pot Book Club.