About the Author:

Greetings, lords and ladies, wizards, detectives, Elves and Men and Hobbits! I am your humble authoress, known by many names in the countless years since I joined this site. At the moment you may call me Gauchadeutsche, Tasarien of Caras Galadhon, or Sarra Manderly, the latter two being my nicknames on Archive of Our Own, where I also post my stories.

I live in the unbearably hot Southwest, by circumstance more than by desire, where I work my real-life job in IT. South American Spanish is my native tongue, but you wouldn't know it if you talked to me in person. I started English classes at age 5, so even before moving to the States, I was on my way to fluency, and by the end of high school I'd lost my accent entirely. I also studied French in high school, never used it again, and completed a German minor in college. Now, does that mean you can expect fanfic in any of those languages? No, I wouldn't dare. My formal education in Spanish ended in the middle of sixth grade, and I never reached fluency in either French or German. Hit me up if you want to translate one of my stories, though! There's at least one Russian translation of AtD floating around.

When I'm not writing, working, or napping, I can be found:

1. Baking some tricky recipe, because simple chocolate chip cookies just don't do it for me anymore. If it doesn't require whipping something and cooking a syrup to an exact temperature at the same time, it's easy mode.

2. READING all of the things. Fantasy, non-fiction books about the space race, photography magazines, English history, you name it.

3. With a crochet hook and yarn in hand. I'm a novice, but it's a great stress-reliever.

4. Playing The Lord of the Rings Online, the only MMORPG I've ever played. I love it. It's a chance to immerse yourself in Middle-Earth, run around exploring it, and breathe in the lore, especially where the films dropped the ball.

5. Making 3D models, dressing them in period costumes, and rendering images for my own amusement and 0 profit. I can't even remember when I first downloaded Daz Studio, but I love messing with it. You might see illustrations for Aemon the Dragonwolf someday.

6. At the gym, burning off work stress. (And it finally re-opened!) Never mind, it's shut down again.

7. Watching the latest short-lived drama series. Lately I've been watching World on Fire, Unorthodox, and Belgravia. I also fell in love with The Dragon Prince on Netflix, and I'll toss a coin to your Witcher.

My Inspirations:

A girl can't recommend Tamora Pierce often enough. I'm not the kind of kid who needed Harry Potter to get into reading; I've always been a bookworm. I used to go to the public library once a week, take a whole stack of YA novels, read them all, and return the next week for more. But I barely remember most of them. Tammy's books stayed with me for good, and they continue to inspire me to this day. Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan and little wizard-in-training Arram Draper are my Eastern Lands spirit animals.

I can't neglect JK Rowling's Harry Potter entirely, because it is what got me into fanfiction in the first place. But I won't deny that I was unhappy with the last two books, and every new addition to the canon (see: Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts I, Fantastic Beasts II, and those awful after-the-fact tweets) makes me more disillusioned with this universe.

Obviously, my biggest inspiration is going to be the father of modern fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm the kind of writer who will agonize over background details that my readers will barely notice, that might not make it into the final product at all, but the whole universe has to be built (or at least be well into construction) before I can put characters in it. You can imagine how the Tolkienverse, with its dozens of books of extra material, appeals to my heart of hearts. I love the details flowing through the LOTR trilogy and enriching it. I've read The Silmarillion enough times that the spine is falling apart, and you can bet I have The Children of Hurin, the Book of Lost Tales, and all that good stuff on my shelf. Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy is a masterpiece and I love it (especially the extended editions), but in my writing, I will always default to book-canon. And yes, I am what the old Council of Elrond forums called a 'Faramir Fancier'.

Avatar: the Last Airbender is the greatest cartoon ever, and it is possible to hold that opinion and ship Zutara at the same time. If I ever want to write a redemption arc, I will attempt to make it like Zuko's, because if you must copy, copy from the best! The Dragon Prince is also an instant fave.

Currently Working On:

Aemon the Dragonwolf, Part IV: Rise and Fall. My muse ripped me out of Middle-Earth and into Westeros (an odd occurrence, considering I've never watched the show or read the books), but here I am, writing a novel-length fanfic for a super-long, complicated, unfinished series that I've never read in full.

Next up will be Aemon the Dragonwolf Part V: The Crown of Winter.

My Middle-Earth stories will be just as long, if I ever get back to them! I've had one percolating in my head for years about Aragorn in his ranger days, and I'm cringing at how I left The Fading unfinished. I have no excuse.