5 Utah fantasy authors you may not already know

Utah is something of a hub for fantasy authors, home to writers like Brandon Mull, Brandon Sanderson and Shannon Hale.

Here are five other Beehive State authors you may not already know:

Alex Jay Lore

Alex Jay Lore, who is originally from Germany, credits fantasy books like those from Ursula K. Le Guin with helping him learn English.

His stories feature LGBTQ+ protagonists, and he describes his work as “queerness with a chance of explosions.”

“I first started to write because I came across Lynn Flewelling’s ‘Nightrunner’ series, which was the first time that I’d ever seen a main character who was bisexual and the bisexuality wasn’t a problem,” Lore said. “This was definitely at a time when there wasn’t a whole lot of queer fantasy that even existed or that I knew about.”

Lore, now an English and creative writing teacher for high school seniors in Utah, also said there’s a power to representation in the fantasy genre.

“[There] is this huge potential of seeing yourself in stories,” he said.

Lore’s works include “Empire of Light.”

Jessica Day George

Jessica Day George writes young adult fantasy series. One of those is “The Princess of Westfalin Trilogy,” which is the author’s take on the “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” story from “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”

Day George’s books also focus on other mystical elements and characters, like dragons and magic in Romania.

Tricia Levenseller

Tricia Levenseller, a Brigham Young University alum, is the author of the popular young adult romantasy series “Daughter of the Pirate King.”

“I came here to be in the publishing world,” she said, “and then I stayed because I fell in love with the community here.”

Her work shares tales of pirates, weapons imbued with magical powers, and other fantasy elements.

Jodi Milner

Jodi Milner, who spent 10 years writing the first book of her young adult fantasy series “Shadow Barrier,” has had a “lifelong love of reading and fantasy.” She said one of the experiences that shaped her childhood was the ability to “step into another set of shoes” through books.

“Anytime I wanted to kind of escape the normal world, because I was a really awkward kid, I could step into the shoes of these heroes and have this amazing experience and conquer evil,” she said. “… You go into a fantasy world and all of a sudden the problems that you’re having in your normal life just don’t seem as big anymore.”

Candace J. Thomas

Candace J. Thomas is the author of “The Vivatera Series,” which explores elemental magic. Thomas and Milner both published their series through smaller publishers at first.

Thomas has also written a poetry book, “Wandering Beautiful,” and a fate-driven romantic comedy about a hypochondriac vampire, “Vampire-ish: A Hypochondriac’s Tale.”