About Me
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a wizard. Or a paleontologist. Maybe both.
I’m neither now, but magic and monsters are still my favorite things.
Born in Okinawa, Japan while my Dad was on duty with the US Navy, I moved around throughout my childhood and traveled even more. Reading and theater were the two things that got me through it all.
After graduating from the University of Kansas in 2003 with a degree in Gender Studies, I went on to graduate school for a Master’s in the same. Halfway through, I ditched my advisor in favor of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic epic poetry, because the blood, tragedy, and violence were much more civilized than academic in-fighting. I don’t have a graduate degree, but I did translate my own version of Beowulf!
Despite having traveled all over the world, I settled in Kansas (where the flying monkeys live) with my partner, two cats, and a mutant mutt named Grendel.
Because I was raised on fairy tales and dinner-time conversations about emergency room patients (thanks, Mom and Dad!) I tend to mix magic and blood whenever possible. Beware, that sticky stuff down there on the bottom of the screen is not a melted Jolly Rancher. 
This site is a work in progress. Please visit me at my blog: tessagratton.livejournal.com or over at the Merry Sisters of Fate, where I write weekly fiction along with Maggie Stiefvater and Brenna Yovanoff: www.merryfates.com.
WELCOME!
(pictures by Marisa Stanley and Natalie Parker.)