Beneath the Surface of Two Kills
Shauna O’Meara
Cassandre Bolan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hailing from the parched wheat belt country of Western Australia, Shauna O’Meara’s childhood was spent roaming rugged, hilly paddocks and the seasonal river below her home with her dogs, concocting wild fugitive stories along the way.
Her first fictional loves were Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Brian Jacques’ Redwall, and Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn, as well as the artwork and storytelling of early Disney films and 1980s and ’90s cartoons.
Shauna earned a university degree in veterinary medicine and, following a stint in commercial practice, found career fulfillment working with and treating shelter animals. When she is not vetting, Shauna spends her time writing and creating art.
Shauna’s Writers of the Future win is her first professional story sale and second short story publication.
She recently completed the artwork for a short comic commissioned by Midnight Echo magazine and has contributed the cover and interior art to several Australian speculative fiction anthologies.
She has just completed her first novel—a science fiction crime novel set in a post-global-warming America—and has a head full of tales just waiting to be committed to print. She is avidly following the exciting storytelling currently going on in the world of graphic novels and aspires to one day write and draw one of her own.
You can contact Shauna on her blog (theshaunacorner.wordpress.com) or on Facebook (shauna.omeara.501).
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Cassandre Bolan is a quirky artist who always mismatches her socks. She spends literally every waking moment doing illustration and concept art, is obsessed with mythology and feminism and has a wicked jasmine tea addiction.
Cassandre recently moved back to the United States after seven years living in the international city of Dubai. She grew up as an Army brat, traveling across the Middle East and the US, doodling and reading fantasy novels as she went.
Shortly after graduating from Pennsylvania State University with a BFA in painting and drawing and a minor in art history, she realized that fine art was not the career for her and has been teaching herself illustration and digital painting ever since!
Cassandre is fighting tooth and nail to develop a career in concept art and fantasy illustration, mostly because it’s the only way that she will be able to paint all day, every day, but also because it’s her little way of trying to change the way that the world thinks of women.
At the moment she is getting ready to launch a new personal art series that shakes up gender archetypes in mythology to take the science fiction and fantasy industry by storm!
Rabidly excited about painting these strong female characters, Cassandre hopes to take on more work like this from clients in the future.
Stay up to date with Cassandre on her website (cassandrebolan.com) or visit her on Facebook (CassandreBolan).