The Graver
Amy M. Hughes
TAYLOR PAYTON
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy M. Hughes was born in Provo, Utah, the first American child of a Canadian family. She was raised in Alberta, Canada, surrounded by prairie while dreaming of mountains and trees. Too many forested fantasy novels may have had some part in that.
She learned to read early and moved from The Hardy Boys in the first grade to Tolkien by the fourth. She developed a deep love of reading that has sporadically spilled into a need to write, on and off for many years. In 2008, at the insistence of her husband, Amy attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. She learned more in one week about how to tell a good story than she had in the first two years of her English degree.
Amy has been a factory line worker, a veterinary technician, a missionary, an herbalist, a landscape designer, and a stay-at-home mom. She has also eaten fire, jumped off a third-story balcony, and crashed in a hot air balloon. More than anything, she wants to be a writer. She hopes it doesn’t have to involve growing up.
“The Graver” is Amy’s first submission to the Writers of the Future Contest.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Taylor Payton was born in 1990 and spent many of his early years as an adventurous and wily youth in the bustling suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
During his grade school adventures, he and other classmates would spend many hours drawing characters from their favorite games and anime.
For as long as he can recall, he was rather fond of doodling, but he didn’t make the solidified decision to become an illustrator until the age of twenty-one. The calling hit Taylor in the midst of his collegiate major of media arts and animation. He soon put down the animation paper for digital paintbrushes, but still finished up his degree.
Taylor went on to win “Best in Show” at his graduate portfolio ceremony and has since worked on a plethora of private and commercial jobs. He aims to further his arts education at a local atelier while he develops his worlds, characters, and professional career. Taylor’s art verges on the fantastic, but he’s cultivated a deep connection to the novelties of abstraction and surrealism.