S. D. Banks is a native Texan, and a long-time resident of Austin (the Live Music Capital of the World, and home to a vibrant writing community as well). She has been writing for as long as she can remember, joking that she started her "writing career" while still in grade school. "I would carefully write out stories, draw "book covers" for them, and then staple or lace the pages together to form books," she laughs. "I had a secret drawer full of them. What a strange child I was!" It was much later that her passion for history emerged. Banks holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from Texas State University, where she also studied writing. She credits her history professors there with demonstrating that an understanding of history can give us the key we need to understand the present. “Many of the trials, conflicts, and dilemmas we face today are either continuations of situations that have gone on for centuries, or are so similar to past events that the relevance of the parallels cannot be ignored,” she says. “Knowing these things – understanding the ramifications of how they played out in the past – can keep us as a society from being manipulated or misled, and can help make us as individuals better citizens and wiser voters.” Banks adds what is essentially her mission statement. “If, through my novels, I can impart a few nuggets of historical knowledge in an entertaining way, then I feel I’ve been successful.” Follow S.D. Banks in Instagram and Facebook!