Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on December 19th, 1975. Brandon took pleasure in reading as a child; however, he found himself quickly growing bored and losing interest in the books that had been suggested for him to read. His boredom grew and by his early teens he rarely read at all. This all changed when as an 8th grade student a teacher handed him a copy of Barbara Hambly’s ‘Dragonsbane’. This was his first introduction to the world of fantasy and Brandon quickly became engrossed in any fantasy epic he could find. His love of fantasy continued throughout grade school as he discovered authors such as Melanie Rawn, Anne McCaffrey and Robert Jordan.

Brandon enrolled at Brigham Young University in 1994; majoring in Biochemistry. He spent two years (1995-1997) in Seoul, Korea as a missionary from the Mormon Church. It was during this time period that Brandon truly discovered his love for writing and upon his return to campus he changed his major from Biochemistry to English. Soon after Brandon began writing at night while working as a desk clerk at a local hotel. This job, while helping to pay his tuition, also afforded him an opportunity to write as much as he liked during night shifts. All told Brandon completed seven novels while a student at BYU. He submitted many of these for publication and despite repeated rejections, Brandon stayed true to his dream. While pursuing a graduate degree from BYU, Brandon spent time volunteering for the university’s Sci Fi/Fantasy magazine ‘The Leading Edge’. Brandon worked as Editor-in-Chief; reading numerous article submissions. He also began learning about the business side of writing; taking a class from the author of the ‘Runelords’ series David Farland. While continuing to work toward his graduate degree, Brandon received a call in 2003 from an editor who wanted to purchase a book that Brandon had submitted a year and half earlier. Brandon graduated with his Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Brigham Young University in 2005. Subsequently, he was asked to teach the creative writing class focusing on science fiction and fantasy that David Farland had taught while Brandon was a student. He still teaches this class due to his love of helping aspiring writers. By May of that same year Brandon’s first novel ‘Elantris’ was in book stores and his publishers TOR had also released his ‘Mistborn’ trilogy.

Brandon was married in July 2006 to Emily Bushman. Brandon and Emily knew many of the same people in college, but didn’t meet until a mutual friend introduced them in 2005. Emily spent time as a teacher, but now works from home as Brandon’s business manager and mother to their son Joel, who was born in October 2007.

After the passing of one of his favorite fantasy authors Robert Jordan, Brandon was chosen to complete the ‘Wheel of Time’ series. Brandon will pen ‘A Memory of Light’, which is scheduled to be released in Fall of 2009.