Shan L. Spyker loves to make things with words and ink! Her passion for writing was first ignited when she discovered the world of publishing through her love of music, when at age 14, she created her first zine about her favorite band (it was Duran Duran). Her drive to write, design and publish has never diminished since that time. She grew up along the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio, earning a BA in studio art while working for a screen printer where she learned the process. She later earned a secondary degree in IT focusing on web design and development. Today, her graphic design business Tulip Tree Creative Studios blends all these experiences, offering design and writing services to small businesses, academic publishers, and non-profit organizations, in addition to interior book design services to independent authors.
She lives with her family, all artists and creatives in their own right: her husband and two amazing...kids isn't the right word anymore, their two very unique felines and an aquatic frog named Gerard. She wishes she could also be a companion animal owner to an elephant, a water buffalo, and a humpback whale, but since this is impractical, and she recognizes it is best they remain in the wild, she instead supports them through organizations who help take care of those in need. She has deep interest in nature, the environment, the pursuit of animal rights, human rights, and social justice, and these issues strongly influence and inform her art and writing.
She loves live music, gardening, cooking, traveling, hiking (particularly amongst sandstone hoodoos in the desert southwest whenever she can get there), soaking up favorite films and series, and being with her family and friends. Cilantro, rivers and waterfalls, outer space, and her Faber-Castell India Ink pens are among her biggest little joys in life. Some of her creative influences—artists, authors, musicians, some more recent and some life-long—include Hayao Miyazaki, Jamie Hewlett, Vashti Harrison, Mary Stewart, Grace Lin, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Campbell, Jason Reynolds, Holly Black, Damon Albarn, Joe Strummer, John Trudell, and Fatoumata Diawara.
The Way of the River: Kellandale Wood (Book One) is her first novel, a fantasy adventure written for lovers of middle grade fiction which she authored as well as designed the interior. The story is based upon a series of collaborative family bedtime stories that has spanned three generations, and first told by her father decades ago.
