Bio: Patricia S. Bowne has been hanging around university science departments since the age of 3, in every capacity from faculty brat to dean. She has spent time collecting fishes and invertebrates, cataloguing museum specimens, putting up educational displays (one of which involved live rattlesnakes), creating scientific illustrations, supervising student field work in lakes, rivers, and on coral reefs, assisting on deep-sea sampling cruises and in a giant clam farm, taking the jaws out of a 7-foot shark, and picking through piles of dead fish from Alberta to Taiwan. In the process she has accumulated a B.Sc in Biology, B.A. in Humanities, M.S in Marine Biology, and Ph.D. in Zoology.

None of the universities she has attended or worked in has had a Demonology Department, however. The Royal Academy of Osyth is her attempt to rectify that tragic shortcoming. This is the first Royal Academy novel: seven stories set in the Academy have also been published, and you can find out how to buy them at the Royal Academy website, www.raosyth.com. You will also find the world's only blog for the discussion of Academic Magic. Join the conversation!