Terry Brooks grew up in the town of Sterling, Illinois with his father, a printing company owner, and his mother, who stayed at home.  He earned an undergraduate degree in English Literature at Hamilton College in 1966 and later attended the School of Law at Washington & Lee University to eventually earn a graduate degree. He first started writing in high school.  His first novel was "The Sword of Shannara", written in 1974 and originally sent to Ballantine.  Lester Del Rey announced that it was "the best fantasy since [J.R.R.] Tolkien" and published it in 1977.  It became the first fictional work to appear on the New York Times trade papaerback bestseller list. Brooks joined a small practice, mainly involved with family law, but now focuses on his writing career.  He married Barbara O'Banion in 1972 and had two children, Amanda and Alex. In 1986, during a book-tour stop in Seattle, he met a district manager for Waldenbooks, Judine Alba.  He left Barabra and the kids six months later and married Judine in 1987.  They spend their time living in their Seattle home, the three acres that Brooks own in Oregon, and their $1,000,000+ home in Hawaii.

You can wite to Mr. Brooks through snail-mail in care of: Del Rey Books 201 East 50th Street NY, NY 10022 USA

Ever wonder what Terry sounds like. Check out a radio interview with Terry here: http://entertainment.lycos.com/features/terry_brooks.asp Randomhouse interview about Antrax: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/shannara/interview.html Star Wars interview with USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/enter/books/book098.htm Star Wars Interview with Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/feature/11681/104-7355671-9623134 Another Star Wars Interview: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~lightsabre/Interviews/terrybrooksinterview.htm Interview with www.theonering.net: http://www.wired.com/news/radio/0,1665,47673,00.html# Interview with Albedo http://homepage.tinet.ie/~albedo1/interview-brooks.html Angle Fire East interview: http://hometown.aol.com/da3400/TerryBrooks.html Running With the Demon interview: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/brooks/author/TBRtranscript.html Sci/Fi 2002 Interview with Terry: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/advance/07_interview.html