John G. Hartness is a teller of tales, a righter of wrong, defender of ladies’ virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love. He is also the best-selling author of the EPIC-Award-winning series The Black Knight Chronicles from Bell Bridge Books, a comedic urban fantasy series that answers the eternal question “Why aren’t there more fat vampires?” In 2016, Raising Hell, the first book in his dark fantasy Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter series, was awarded the Manly Wade Wellman award by the NC Speculative Fiction Foundation.A graduate of Winthrop University, John lives in Charlotte with his wife Suzy and a very demanding cat. In other lives, he has been an actor, lighting designer, theatre consultant, salesman, electronics technician, and arts administrator. In 2016, John teamed up with a pair of other publishing industry ne’er-do-wells and founded Falstaff Books, a publishing conglomerate dedicated to pushing the boundaries of literature and entertainment. In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and recording new episodes of the podcast Authors & Dragons, where he plays a Pathfinder game with five other fantasy authors. An avid Magic: the Gathering player, John is strong in his nerd-fu and has sometimes been referred to as “the Kevin Smith of Charlotte, NC.” And not just for his girth.