all about
D. T. Read
Originally from northern Utah, Diann Thornley wrote her first story at the age of five and never stopped. She taught herself to type with two fingers on her father’s old college typewriter at the age of ten because it was faster than pushing a pencil. After winning a statewide writing contest, junior high division, at the age of fourteen, she began her first novel, which was based on the Arthurian legends. This endeavor filled most of her high school years, until she “converted” to science fiction early in college and it was placed on “indefinite hold.”
Ganwold’s Child, first book of the 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, the second and third books of the Sergey trilogy, were also written in Ohio and published by Tor in the late 1990s. Chris Kennedy Publishing acquired the trilogy in 2023 and they were all rereleased that year.
Diann transitioned 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, where she retired from the Air Force in June 2009 to return to her writing career.
Diann learned her writing craft from such mentors as Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Moon, and David Wolverton-Farland. She is now working on The Seventh Shaman series, seven-book military science fiction saga about a young man from a shamanic society who battles not only an interstellar despot but also the grim expectations of his own traditional culture. The Shaman books are also published by Chris Kennedy Publishing.