Chris Howard - Author profile picture

Chris Howard - Author

Author, artist, software engineer

About Me


I write fantasy and science fiction and I paint in watercolor and digital formats. (See some of my art here and here).

My novel SEABORN will be out in July from Juno Books !


Web site for Seaborn:
www.saltwaterwitch.com
Pre-order SEABORN from Amazon.com and get 5% off the list price, some art, and a whole new world! Find out more...
Check out the gorgeous SEABORN cover art by Tim Lantz
http://www.myspace.com/archeon
My YA fantasy, SALTWATER WITCH is complete and with my agent.
Working like a whole hive of bees--super coordinated writing bees who like the sea--on The New Sirens, working title for the sequel to Seaborn.
I just won the Amateur Category of the Heinlein Centennial Short Fiction Contest with my short story, "Hammers and Snails."
I was born in Indiana, but as an army brat, I grew up all over: Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Presidio of San Francisco, France, Germany and Japan. I'm a software engineer and part time Aristotelian philosopher.
I blog at http://theophrast.us
My short stories have appeared in The Harrow, Another Realm, Ultraverse, Quantum Muse and others.
Nanowhere is an SF thriller I released under a Creative Commons license.
I sketch and paint scenes of the stories I write. Here's one of my portfolios
blog feed
Some of my latest paintings:

Fiction ...that's gone somewhere other than postal round trips or taking up space on my computer:
  • Nanowhere - FREE EBOOK
    Lykeion Books, 292 pages
    ISBN 0977380726
    April 2006 - Paperback and eBook

    • Short Stories
  • "Always Becoming"
    The Harrow -Jan. 2006
    Download the MP3 (17MB)
  • "Diminisher of Peace"
    The Harrow -Sept. 2005
    Download the MP3 (13MB)
  • DOA (chapters 1-11)
    NaNoWriMo 2005

  • "A Corner Not Dipped in Styx"
    Ultraverse March 2006
  • "The Greek Kalends"
    Quantum Muse -Jan. 2006
  • "Tyrannicide"
    Scribal Tales -Jan. 2006
  • "Superfun Sites"
    Another Realm

    • PODCASTS
    Diminisher of Peace
    Always Becoming
    A Corner Not Dipped In Styx
    Nanowhere Chapt. 1

    My Interests

    Writing novels and short stories, primarily fantasy and science fiction. Drawing and painting in watercolor and digital. I usually paint scenes from the stories I write, but every once in a while the mood for something else will take me. Did I mention mermaids? Mermaids.

    I'd like to meet:

    Top of the list: Aristotle, but if you mean without a time machine: authors--of all kinds and pens because I read everything from SF to chick lit. Artists, again, from every corner of creation because I can't think of any direction art has gone that has failed to inspire me in some way. Oh, yeah, and mermaids. Where are all the mermaids?

    Music:

    All kinds, from '70s prog rock to classical. Regina Spektor, Gentle Giant, Apples in Stereo, The Commodores, The Cranberries, David Bowie, Dressy Bessy, Tilly and the Wall, Frank Zappa, Aesop Rock, Dandy Warhols, My Bloody Valentine, Garbage, Lacuna Coil, Itzhak Perlman, KT Tunstall, Moby, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, They Might Be Giants, Tori Amos, The Birthday Massacre, Ween, Weezer.

    Books:

    Any fantasy or science fiction. In no particular order: Charles Stross, Caitlín R. Kiernan, China Mieville, Lois McMaster Bujold, Terry Pratchett, Susanna Clarke, Nick Sagan, Stephenie Meyer, Tad Williams, Paul Kearney, Garth Nix, Tobias Buckell, John Scalzi, J.K. Rowling, Robin Hobb, Tanith Lee, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, Scott Westerfeld, Umberto Eco, J.R.R. Tolkein, Poul Anderson, Steven Brust, Jodi Picoult, Patrick O'Brian, Jonathan Stroud, Robert E. Howard, Anne McCaffrey, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Larry Niven, Daniel Keys Moran, Mary Renault, Cornelia Funke, Justine Larbalestier, Adele Griffin, Hal Duncan, Maureen Johnson, Gail Z Martin, Holly Black, Jasper Fforde, Raven Dane, Stephenie Meyer, Cara Lockwood, Diane Duane, Scott Westerfeld, Erica Orloff, Ally Carter, Elizabeth Bear, Aristotle, Isaac Asimov, Dan Simmons, Philip Pullman, Guy Gavriel Kay, Elizabeth Kostova, Steven Pressfield, Holly Lisle, Victor Hugo, Richard K. Morgan, and many others.

    My Blog

    Punchline

    Painted this for Illustration Friday topic: punchline.  Digital, about 40 minutes. Knock knock......
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:26:00 PST

    Kindeliciously Seaborn

    Got an email from Samir this morning with pics of his search, purchase and reading of Seaborn on his Amazon Kindle reader.  Kick-ass!  Thank you, Samir.Pics--click to see the larger view:Sea...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:06:00 PST

    Shark Girl

    No, he's not going to attack--that's her pet.Speed paint, about 45 minutes. Click to see the full view....
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:06:00 PST

    Send Seaborn wirelessly to your Kindle

    http://www.amazon.com/Seaborn/dp/B001B2MQVMYes, it's available now.  Juno Books has released the e-edition of Seaborn a month ahead of the print edition.  The Kindle version is already there...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:06:00 PST

    Seaborn cover--the latest

    ...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sat, 14 Jun 2008 01:46:00 PST

    Readercon and SEABORN

    Okay, I just registered for Readercon, which will coincide with the release of Seaborn.  Be there if you want to get one from the Prime Books space in the "Bookshop." http://www.readercon.org Re...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:54:00 PST

    Crowdsourced Ebook Format Verification

    Ah yes, the old CEFV... (pron. seph-vee). So, here's the story:  The publisher of SEABORN (Juno Books) will be releasing a print and electronic version of the book--and the ebook in a variety of ...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:28:00 PST

    Corina--the other main character in Seaborn

    Corina Lairsey, one of the main characters in SEABORN.  Painted this one this morning, about 3 hours of work.  If you've read the first ten chapters of the "samplers" that have been handed o...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:16:00 PST

    This year, were pushing Argon

    Argon's the element with the atomic number 18.  18 is the only number that equals twice the sum of its decimal digits (I'm not counting zero).  18 is a wonderful number, the Hebrew word for ...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:54:00 PST

    Ocean inside her

    This one started life as a watercolor, and then went digital.Click to see the larger view. ...
    Posted by Chris Howard - Author on Sun, 13 Apr 2008 06:40:00 PST