Ann Chamberlin

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Ann Chamberlin also spent big blocks of time as a child in Europe where her father was visiting professor of mathematics. After flitting from school to school and major to major including theater, history and English, she finally majored in Archaeology of the Middle East at the University of Utah. She spent a summer in Israel excavating the biblical city of Beersheva, traveling throughout the Holy Land and living in the old city of Jerusalem for a month. She reads Hebrew, Arabic, Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient Akkadian as well as French and German. With her husband, she has traveled across all of North Africa, Turkey and Jordan. They have two sons and twelve chickens, and live in an old farm house on nearly two acres near Salt Lake City.

Ann is the author of ten historical novels, several of them named best foreign historical of the year by Romantic Times. Her trilogy set in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire has been on the bestsellers list in Turkey for six months. Her current project is a series called the Joan of Arc Tapestries. Four books of this series are published so far: THE MERLIN OF ST. GILLES' WELL, which Booklist gave a starred review and named one of the five best new fantasies of the year. THE MERLIN OF THE OAK WOOD, which Booklist gave a starred review and VOYA named one of the best new fantasies of the year. A third book has been published only in German translation. GLORIA: THE MERLIN AND THE SAINT is out in 2005 from High Country Publishers.

Ann is pleased to announce a nonfiction history of women in the Middle East entitled THE VEIL IN THE LOOKING GLASS has been released from Haworth Press.

She is the author of many plays which have been produced across the country from Seattle to New York. JIHAD, produced by New Perspectives Theatre in New York City, won The Off Off Broadway Review's best new play of the year in 1996.