This endeavor filled most of her high school years and led to a college semester in Europe to explore castles and other historic sites for research. However, sometime before serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she converted from fantasy to science fiction, and her King Arthur novel was placed on indefinite hold.

Ganwold’s Child, the first book of the Sergey Chronicles, took seven years to write, due to completing college and entering the U.S. Air Force. Following a year-long tour of duty in the Republic of Korea, Diann finished Ganwold’s Child while stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. Echoes of Issel and Dominion’s Reach (now renamed Tentacles of the Dominion), the second and third books of the Sergey trilogy, were also written in Ohio. Best described as military sci-fi/political thrillers, the trilogy was published by Tor in the late 1990s. Chris Kennedy Publishing acquired them in 2023 and rereleased all three books that year.

Diann switched from active duty into the Air Force Reserves following Desert Storm, but her military career spanned 23 years and included deployments to Bosnia and Iraq. In December 2000 she married Jon Read and moved to Texas. There, she retired from the Air Force in June 2009 and rebuilt her writing career from scratch.

Diann learned her writing craft from such mentors as Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Moon, and David Wolverton-Farland. She worked for David as an editorial assistant for several years, until his passing in January 2022. She is currently completing The Seventh Shaman series, a seven-book military space fantasy saga about a young man from a shamanic society who battles not only an interstellar despot but also the grim expectations of his traditional culture. The Shaman books are also published by Chris Kennedy Publishing.