Justin Grimmett was born in the small town of Idaho Falls, Idaho in the Mid-Seventies. Very early on in life, his extreme creativity appeared, and he often drew, constructed dioramas, or created giant birthday cards for his classmates. In the process he invented 30+ character doodles, so that everyone had an alter ego. Thus, for most of his life, he assumed he would grow up to be an artist. As a young teenager, he developed a love for comic books, and got a paper route, mainly to facilitate the purchase of his abundant collection (Batman, of course, being his go-to rag). While in high school, he continued his art training, and became interested in the writings of Stephen King and Joseph Campbell. Native American and other indigenous folklore appealed to him, and he would take any opportunity to catch a play or read a myth.

He began studies at the Seattle Art Institute in the Mid-Nineties, where he pursued a graphic design degree. However, he didn’t enjoy the controlled commercial aspect of that career, and so took a year off to rethink his major. He moved back to Idaho, and attended Idaho State University. He continued to take art classes with his general courses, but quickly accumulated class credits with no degree in sight. He soon decided to change his degree for the final time, to design drafting, an engineering practice of producing drawings for fabrication. He found the pursuit of perfection to his liking and devoured his classes.

After graduating with his Bachelors in Technology, with a total of 209 class credits over his entire collegiate career, Justin immediately set off on a 15-year career. He began to take sub-contracting jobs that took him all over the Pacific Northwest. He enjoyed working on highly focused engineering teams, and he worked in many different fields, including the automotive, mining, food service, industrial, and nuclear arenas. He was asked to do technical writing, as well as animation during his employment. However, as time went on, he began to miss the freedom he once had as an artist, the freedom to completely dictate his own vision of work. He started drawing again at night. Then one fateful night, he had an idea: to write an original comic book, his original love, that he himself could illustrate.

He became a weekend warrior of writing. He found he had a natural story-telling ability that he wasn’t aware he had. He fell in love with this new art, in which he could accomplish so much more than a single picture. The problem he found was that he had a lot of material that was bubbling to the surface. So much so, he quickly determined he would have to cut his first book in half, to make it work. After about a year or so, he had finally finished writing the first novel to his series, Ark of the Chimeron: Creature of the Black Nebula. Soon after, he published That Which Would Become Lore. After almost three years of continuous writing, he produced the third in the series, Nadir at the Maelstrom. He also did most of the work on his book covers.

Justin, when not writing or in quarantine, enjoys being in the wilderness. He likes to hike, camp, kayak, and ski, all of which is readily available in Idaho. He enjoys spending time with his family and friends.