About the Author

Sam Nirva

“Sam Nirva is a writer, educator, and lifelong builder of things, from precision manufacturing tooling to immersive fantasy worlds.”

35+ years in tool & die and manufacturing engineering
15+ years teaching community college
A shift into creative writing
A philosophy of learning and and the belief that people grow best when they build things together

I started writing in my late twenties, scribbling fragments of worlds that didn’t yet exist. At the time, they were just loose ideas: scenes, characters, scraps of dialogue captured between long workdays and late night Dungeons and Dragons sessions with friends. I didn’t know it then, but those moments around the table, building stories together and watching characters come alive through dice and imagination, were feeding the same creative spark. Those scraps became the first stones in a long, winding road that would eventually lead to a full novel, a world shaped by memory, craft, camaraderie, and the quiet persistence of imagination.

I’ve always had a deep love for medieval England. It’s my favorite place to travel, and every visit feels like I am stepping into the pages of the stories I grew up imagining. I can wander a castle for hours, studying the stonework, the worn steps, the arrow slits. There’s something about those old walls that speaks to me, a sense of history and human effort layered over centuries. Walking through those places fuels my imagination and reminds me why I write worlds shaped by craft, memory, and the echo of real places.

Sam Nirva