Author Profile: Michelle Franklin
By Ludmila Rishkova
November 17, 2010
Recently published author of The Commander and the Den Asaan Rautu: Book 1 of the Haanta series, Michelle Franklin is no stranger to the Fantasy writing scene. In fact, although I have known her for a few years now, it is only when I interviewed Michelle that I realized how prolific and intense a writer she was.
Michelle is a New Yorker who came to Montreal in order to complete a Creative Writing degree at Concordia University. Unsatisfied with the direction and interests of the faculty, she quit shortly prior to graduating. Since then, she published several short fantasy stories with us and worked as a game designer and narrator for Narrative Design until falling victim to budget cuts six months ago.
Getting laid off was a blessing in disguise as it allowed Michelle to reconnect with the pleasure of writing the kind of fiction that she truly enjoyed. In fact, in the last six months, Michelle has been so prolific we can almost qualify it as obsessive. The Commander and the Den Asaan Rautu is a series of 8 books written out of chronological order over six months. Abandoning everything she was taught about writing, Michelle followed the order of fancy of her characters and events they entangled themselves in. While writing the 8 books, Michelle also wrote short stories and has been coming out with an amazing ratio of roughly two chapters and two short stories a day. Needless to say, she invests a lot of time into her work, does fifteen-hour shifts and deserves the 30,000 followers that like her and are addicted to the Haanta world.
Fantasy genre addicts can follow Michelle on meibatsuren.deviantart.com as well as thehaanta.deviantart.com and once the eyes burn from so much time spent in front of a computer screen there is also Book 1, published by iUniverse and available on both Amazon, Barnes and Noble and will appear at Chapters shortly after Christmas.
For Montreal fans, Michelle will be doing a book signing this Saturday, November 13th from 12pm to 3pm at Montreal’s annual Expozine located at St-Dominique Church on the Plateau.
You may also read our review of The Commander and the Den Asaan Rautu: Book 1 shortly prior to its appearance in Chapters stores this winter.