Bree Despain

The Short: Bree rediscovered her childhood love for creating stories when she took a semester off college to write and direct plays for at-risk, inner-city teens from Philadelphia and New York. She currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband, two young sons, and her beloved TiVo. The Dark Divine is Bree's debut novel.

The Long: As a kid, Bree would staple folded papers to make her own "novels." As a teen, she wrote stories in notebooks while her friends waited for the next page to be finished. Her teachers told her she should be a writer. But Bree thought only special people could be writers, so as the years past, she settled into the idea of becoming a lawyer or something else just as ordinary.

Bree rediscovered her childhood love for creating stories when she took a semester off college to write and direct plays for at-risk, inner city teens from Philadelphia and New York. With a renewed passion for story, and the young adult audience, she returned to Brigham Young University, filled her schedule with creative writing and literature classes, and started writing stories again. But regular life kicked in, and she soon found herself married with a new baby, working full-time, and with very little writing done.

That’s when the universe threw a pick-up truck in her path. The car accident left Bree with an understanding that life was too short to not do what you absolutely love. A few days later, her husband brought home a used laptop computer, placed it by her bedside, and said, “You’d better start writing.” Her life has never been the same since.

In a moment of karmic perfection, Bree received the offer to purchase The Dark Divine on the 6th anniversary of the car accident that put her back on the path to becoming an author.