Insect Sculptor
JOHN W. HAVERTY JR.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in San Diego, California, Scott T. Barnes spent most of his early life working on the family farm in the mountain town of Julian, raising apples, cut flowers (lilacs and lily of the valley) and beef cattle. Most of these products he sold from his family’s roadside produce stand.
Scott wanted to be a writer from an early age and wrote his first 60-page “novel” about skeleton warriors and a flaming sword at age 11 on an old manual typewriter. He has photos of evening typing sessions in his pajamas to prove it, though the original manuscript has been lost.
On her thrice-yearly shopping trips to San Diego, Scott’s mom would leave him at the mall bookstore for hours, knowing she could later find him in the science fiction section reading everything he could reach. Scott spent his twenties and thirties getting a BA in journalism and Spanish and an MBA and working in such disparate places as Mexico City, Mexico and Paris, France. He spent far too much time studying flamenco guitar and kenjitsu rather than writing.
Now settled in Orange County, California, Scott finally developed the discipline to write every week come rain, shine or children. His first goal was to be accepted into Odyssey, the Fantasy Writing Workshop, which he accomplished in 2008. That program helped develop his writing to the point where he could accomplish his second goal, win the Writers of the Future Contest.
Today Scott is a stay-at-home dad with his children Elizabeth, 3, and Kaylynn, 1. He edits the online magazine NewMyths.com and recently completed the fourth-grade illustrated reader Rancho San Felipe with award-winning illustrator Sarah Duque, to be published by the Wieghorst Western Heritage Center in September 2012.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
John W. Haverty Jr. was born October 2, 1986, in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Marion, a small town on the state’s south shore. He studied and earned his BFA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Before reaching his twenty-third birthday, he managed to visit and experience thirty-four countries spread throughout five continents. These experiences abroad helped shape and influence the diverse body of work that he currently illustrates and paints. Since receiving his degree, Haverty has lived and worked on painting in Martha’s Vineyard and Memphis, Tennessee. Lately, his larger-than-life illustrated works are being exhibited in a number of galleries throughout the United States. Haverty now resides in the historical city of Savannah, Georgia, where he is earning his MFA in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design.