About Tiffani

My name is Tiffani Collins and I am the author of the epic fantasy series The Traveler’s Journal, which chronicles the adventures of Danny North Star and Alice Sinclair as they navigate the perils of the related worlds.

And, yes!

I am writing this author’s bio in first-person narrative. Talking about myself in the third-person just always seems so weird. Besides, I’m an Aquarius. We pride ourselves on being individuals and thumbing our noses at the status quo.

So, to all of you traditionalists out there – cope! 🙂

Anyway, back to talking about me, which is the whole point of an author’s bio, right?

The first story I can remember writing down was for an eighth-grade English project. I must have enjoyed myself because I turned right around and began writing in the online collaborative writing community of Sanctuary my freshman year of high school in 1997, which is where Danny hails from. I wrote with my lovely Sanctuary friends all through my high school years, only leaving once I started college to become a Registered Veterinary Technician.

That’s not to say that I stopped writing entirely. Danny and her complicated saga may have had to take a backseat for a few years when I started working at a vet clinic part time while attending school full time, but I thought I could still squeeze in a short story, which is how Nící VinLíena was born.

Short story… Ha!

Nothing I do is ever short or simple!

Nící’s story became a 300+ page book, for which I did a ton of research. That might sound like I slogged through a bunch of dry text books – and, admittedly, some of it was a bit tedious – but much of the homework I set for myself was actually a lot of fun! I decided that if I was going to write a cast of characters who were exceptional martial artists, then I’d better learn martial arts myself.

So, I started practicing Tai Kwon Do and earned my black belt. Nící is a master fiddler – so, I learned to play the violin… but not nearly as well as her! She’s also a healer, which dovetailed very nicely with all of the course work I was doing for my RVT license, and which I supplemented with herbal and traditional medicine research. I now have a nice collection of books on how to brew plants and herbs into infusions and decoctions, make ointments, and steep tinctures. Incidentally, I also have a very cool reference book on how to poison people in dozens of ways and get away with it. Mwa-ha-ha-ha! But I’m not just a writer.

I have a boat-load of other interests. I love spending weekends at Renaissance Faires, Celtic Music Festivals, Scottish Games, and the Great Charles Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco where I do some really fantastic hair braiding, if I say so myself! I like to do crafts and artwork, mostly in color pencil but I dabble in other media, including quilting.

I love games; video games, board games, card games, word games, solitaire games, you name it.

I was forced to learn Cribbage from an early age (because my math skills have always sucked) and grew to actually enjoy the game for its own sake. But no one outside of fair ever plays with me these days, so I’ve learned to play Magic the Gathering in recent years since that’s what my friends all play. I’ve also gotten into Skyrim during the Covid years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. As of 2021, Skyrim is ten years old and ancient history as video games go, but it’s new to me and I am thoroughly enjoying my awesome Level 52, sneaky, thieving, backstabbing Kajiit version of Danny, glitches and all! Let’s see, what else is there to know about me…?

I love to laugh and read, and any books I read that make me laugh brings me double the joy. I love listening to music, which is actually kind of a bummer because I’m hearing impaired and it’s not like your hearing improves as you get older. So, I’m learning ASL in case I end up needing it later down the road and cranking up the volume on Lindsay Sterling in the meantime. Thank God my car has great speakers!

I know how to ride horses, wrestle Rottweilers, and wrangle demonic cats, but those last two skills don’t get much use these days since I’m retired from the Veterinary world. Now, I mostly shuffle books around and help Placer County Library patrons find their next favorite read. Working in a library is a pretty awesome day-job for a fantasy fiction author, let me tell you! And that’s about it, I guess. If there’s anything else you simply must know about me, you can always drop me a line here through my website. I’m really not shy and I’d love to hear from you!