Biography

Shaun Aston is an author whose tales explore the strange, the uncanny, and the mythic, often drawing on the darker edges of fantasy. His work reflects a long fascination with ritual, philosophy, spirituality, altered states, and the border between the ordinary world and the unknown.

Shaun’s interest in fantasy began early; his earliest memory is from when he was three years old, when he was taken to A&E by his mother, having been falsely accused of eating the ball bearing from the base of his toy Dalek. It was nonsense, of course; even at the age of three, he knew that a human could not defeat a Dalek by attempting to eat it. Nonetheless, he is happy that his first memory involves Dr Who.

The next significant milestone he can recall is the first Fantasy novel he read: The Wizard of Boland by "B.B.". This children's Fantasy tale about the events surrounding a somewhat unpleasant wizard definitely left an impression on him. This was the kind of world he wanted to be part of, and he still has his original dog-eared copy of this book on his shelves to this day.

By the time he was at High School, he was an avid reader of Fantasy and Science Fiction, having discovered the likes of Tolkien, Asimov, Frank Herbert, etc, in his early teens.

Another significant milestone in the Fantasy journey was being introduced to "Dungeons and Dragons" by a classmate at school. Lacking access to the actual rules when they started playing, they made up their own improvised system based on what they'd read about the game.

By his late teens he was contemplating the idea of starting to write, but other things in life conspired to get in the way of that for quite a while.

He studied Philosophy to postgraduate level before completing an MA in Creative Writing with the Open University.

Born in Brighton, Shaun has lived in North London for many years, and has been a lifelong servant of cats. His other pastimes include luthiery, archery and TTRPGs.

Shaun worked for many years as a musician and composer and occassionally as a voice actor.

Today he performs as a folk singer at medieval and fantasy events, using lutes and lyres he creates by hand, bringing together his interests in crafting, music, history and performance.