Kennedy, Darin: - Darin Kennedy, born and raised in Winston-Salem, NC, is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Bowman Gray School of Medicine. After completing family medicine residency in the mountains of Virginia, he served eight years as a United States Army physician and wrote his first novel in the sands of northern Iraq. His novel, The Mussorgsky Riddle, was born from a fusion of two of his lifelong loves: classical music and world mythology. The Stravinsky Intrigue continues those same themes, and his Fugue and Fable trilogy culminates in The Tchaikovsky Finale. The Pawn Stratagem trilogy, including Pawn's Gambit, Queen's Peril, and King's Crisis, combines contemporary fantasy, superheroics, and the ancient game of chess. His YA novel, Carol, is a modern-day retelling of A Christmas Carol billed as Scrooge meets Mean Girls. His new ongoing series, Songs of the Ascendant, is an 80s-pop-music-themed contemporary fantasy including Shadows of the Night, All Fired Up, and You Better Run. His short stories, particularly those about a certain Necromancer for Hire, can be found in numerous anthologies and magazines and are collected for your reading your pleasure. Doctor-by-day and novelist-by-night, he writes and practices medicine in Charlotte, NC. Find him online at darinkennedy.com.