The professional version:  Jared Garrett is the author of the bestselling Finding Home Series. He is a family man raising seven kids with his best friend and wife of two decades.

At the age of 17, Jared escaped from a nomadic Scientology splinter cult. Since then, he’s worked as a teacher, a firefighter, a BBQ restaurant manager, a cowboy theater actor, a DJ, a bellman, a concierge, a rock crusher, and as a rubber vulcanizing engineer, among many others. He’s traveled all over the world, speaks four languages, and teaches groups large and small about overcoming trauma, the creative process, and the power of belief.

His favorite authors are Terry Pratchett, Robert Ludlum, Katherine Paterson, Mercedes Lackey, Patricia McKillip, Brandon Sanderson, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and many more. Keep writing and you might become one of his favorite authors too. He also writes under the penname Gerry Ironspear.

The expurgated version: Jared Garrett is a family man, full-time dad and professional, and the author of the bestselling Finding Home Series and several other books. He grew up as an unwilling cultist and has worked as a firefighter, BBQ chef, cowboy theater actor, and a bellman. After designing training solutions for Amazon and American Express, and other companies, is a full-time dad and writer. He writes in the margins of the day and has published twelve books since 2014. He also writes under the penname Gerry Ironspear.

The unexpurgated version: I was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1974. By the time I turned eleven, I had lived in New York City, western New York State, Virginia, DC, Pennsylvania, Denver, Dallas, Utah, and Arizona. To put it very briefly, I was born and raised in a cult that was a splinter group from original Scientology. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

The first book I remember reading was The Poky Little Puppy. Soon after, I read The Little Engine That Could. I was about six and even then I recognized that the first book was awesome and the latter was fundamentally flawed. If you’d like to know why I say that, email me and I’ll be happy to fill you in.

I quickly moved on to Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion series. I loved them. I fell in love with horses and became instantly addicted to the sensation of being transported into another world and living in that new world for a time. Why? See the reference to ‘born and raised in a cult’ above.

Then I read Bridge to Terabithia and had the experience in which a book changed my life. My heart broke as I read that perfect book, yes, I said perfect book, and it hasn’t ever fully healed. I wanted to move people like Katherine Paterson does. I wanted to distill prose down to perfect storytelling. That book made me want to become a writer. Incidentally, Ms. Paterson is a very fine person and she actually wrote me back when I wrote to her.

Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Wheel of Time, Mercedes Lackey, R.A. Salvatore, Agatha Christie, Robert Ludlum, and John LeCarre soon followed. I have read almost every book in these worlds and by these authors. I’ve moved on to biographies, historical fiction, and have branched out into more fantasy and YA stuff. If you want a suggested reading list, I’ve got a lengthy one.

Lately, I’ve been reading Brandon Sanderson, books by good friends, books about discreet methods of burying bodies, lots of urban fantasy such as Jim Butcher awesomeness, picture books to my kids, and nonfiction like John Adams and Truman.

Why is my bio full of books? Because each book I’ve read shows a little bit of where and who I am when I am reading it.

2014 was a year of extraordinary events, including the miraculous finding of kidney cancer in my wife BEFORE it started killing her, being laid off, the death of my final grandparent, and happiness too great to measure.  With a lot of shredded, broken moments thrown in. It was a turning point for the family and we’ve been on great adventures ever since then.

Finally, I’m a lover not a fighter, a gardener, and I love and like my family. Before I developed arthritis in my knees, I did insane things like run Ragnars and triathlons. Now I’m taking up endurance biking because I can and you can’t stop me. I’ve been known to remodel bathrooms and I prefer German chocolate cake, since you’re asking. See the reference to my birthday above. You can contact me via the Contact tab.