biography

Steve Libbey was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, a few months before mankind landed on the moon, and ever since his head has been elsewhere. Childhood was a blur of superheroes, reruns of Star Trek, science fiction book club hardcovers “accidentally” received, and early exposure to punk rock. Legend has it that he taught himself to read at age two because his parents had gotten bored rereading the same Black Panther comic book to him. He resolved to become a writer when he grew up – then ran outdoors to play with action figures.

As a teenager he discovered what punk rock entailed, which fortunately gave him an escape from escapism, and he acquired social skills. Steve attended an accelerated public school and fared well, while scrawling punk rock logos on his clothes. He flunked out of the University of Colorado (which he attended unknowingly with a future collaborator, artist Douglas Shuler). He tricked the University of Cincinnati into giving him an English degree (cum laude, according to those who bothered to attend the graduation ceremony; this remains unsubstantiated) while he played guitar in manifold rock bands.

In the early nineties, he published short fiction and journalism in magazines, newspapers and journals. Then he decided that rock and roll guitars offered more feedback than fiction. The writing career was put on hold while he spent a decade writing and performing various sorts of rock: punk, jangly punk, shoegazer, grunge, indie noise pop, and finally new wave with an Atlanta band, the Shut-Ups. In quiet moments (daylight hours), he made a living as a web developer, and squandered his money on running an independent record label.

It was during this final flirtation with the music industry that Steve befriended Mercedes Lackey, and the two began to collaborate casually on some superheroic fiction, which eventually evolved into The Secret World Chronicle novel series. As the Shut-Ups were on the verge of securing a major label record contract, an epiphany helped him realize that he had no taste for a life on the road, so he quit the band and moved to Portland, Oregon, to focus on writing at last.