Award-winning author Roxanne Bland was born in the shadows of the rubber factory smokestacks in Akron, Ohio but grew up in Washington, D.C. As a child, she spent an inordinate amount of time prowling the museums of the Smithsonian Institution and also spent an inordinate amount of time reading whatever books she could get her hands on, including the dictionary. A self-described "fugitive from reality," she has always colored outside the lines and in her early years of writing, saw no reason why a story couldn't be written combining the genres she loved and did so despite being told it wasn't possible. Today, she writes stories that are mashups of paranormal urban fantasy, romance, and science fiction, as well as other speculative fiction genres. Bland lives in Baltimore, Maryland.