100-Word Bio
Alethea Kontis is a storm chaser, world traveler, and New York Times bestselling author. She has received the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. She was twice nominated for both the Andre Norton Nebula and Dragon Award. Alethea narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines, contributes book reviews to NPR, and does freelance work for Writing the Other. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida where she watches K-dramas with her teddy bear, Charlie. Together they are ARMY, VVS, and Black Roses. 🥀
Author Photos
“The beauty of a princess, the confidence of a queen, the brilliance of a writer, and the demeanor of a cheerful fairy comedian!”
Cheyenne Z.
Blogger“I want to live in (Alethea’s) head because I think that might be the most interesting place in the world!!!!”
Ellen Oh
Author“If Neil Gaiman and the Brothers Grimm had a child who grew up to weave fairy tales, she would be Alethea Kontis.”
J.T. Ellison
AuthorLong Bio
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, adventurer, and music lover.
She is responsible for creating the epic fairy tale realm of Arilland and dabbling in a myriad of other worlds beyond. Her award-winning novels, stories, essays, and poetry have been published for multiple age groups across all genres. She is the creator of “Princess Alethea’s Fairy Tale Rants,” and was the host of Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow at Dragon Con (Atlanta, GA) for ten years.
At the age of eight, Alethea starred in SC-ETV’s Pass It Along, an eight-part PBS miniseries where she played the role of Crescent, a magical tree sprite who helps a disillusioned astronaut learn how to love Earth again. In the realm of voice acting, Alethea has narrated stories for ACX, IGMS, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, PodCastle, CatsCast, Shimmer, Apex Magazine, and Clarkesworld Magazine.
Alethea’s first published work was as editor of Elemental: Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy, a benefit anthology released by Tor Books in 2006. In July of that same year, Alethea’s first picture book AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First was released by Candlewick Press. AlphaOops was named an NCTE Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Language Arts. The sequel, AlphaOops: H is for Halloween, was a Junior Library Guild Selection.
Alethea’s debut fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won both the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award and Garden State Teen Book Award. Enchanted was nominated for the Audie Award in 2013 and was selected for World Book Night in 2014. Both Enchanted and its sequel, Hero, were nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Her short story collection Tales of Arilland won a second Gelett Burgess Award in 2015. The second book in The Trix Adventures, Trix and the Faerie Queen, was a finalist for the Dragon Award in 2016. Alethea was nominated for the Dragon Award again in 2018 for When Tinker Met Bell, her YA paranormal rom-com set in Kristen Painter’s Nocturne Falls Universe. In 2019, Besphinxed—the third book in that trilogy—won the Scribe Award, presented by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. In 2019, she was one of two recipients of the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant.
Princess Alethea had the honor of speaking about fairy tales at the Library of Congress in 2013. In 2015, she gave the keynote address at the Lewis Carroll Society’s Alice150 Conference in New York City, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
In 2018, Alethea was invited to join fellow author and veteran storm chaser Chris Kridler to experience a season in Tornado Alley. Discovering that they made an excellent team, Chris and Alethea have been out storm chasing together ever since. The dynamic duo has been featured by The Weather Network and Girls Who Chase. Alethea’s middle grade adventure novel Ember and the Storm Witch was inspired by these adventures, and the amazing international crew with whom she chases.
The goddaughter of Vermont’s legendary Nectar Rorris, Alethea has always been a lover of music and a supporter of the indie rock music scene. Singer Mikey Mason performed several times at Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow. Alethea’s humorous short story “The Were Four” was inspired by Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. Her longtime friendship with Adam Ezra and her various adventures with members of the Adam Ezra Group inspired her YA indie rock romance She’s with the Band.
During the 2020 lockdown, Alethea and other Snow Patrol fans from around the world teamed up with lead singer Gary Lightbody to create over a dozen original songs. Their EP, The Fireside Sessions by Snow Patrol and the Saturday Songwriters, released on August 21, 2020 to much critical acclaim. In the wake of The Fireside Sessions, Alethea (along with MK Brennan) edited Patchwork Poetry and Other Gibberish by the Saturday Songwriters, which contains over 100 poems, prose, and works of art by 39 Songwriters from over a dozen countries.
In 2024, Alethea’s love of K-pop led her to South Korea for all three days of the group VANNER’s debut solo concert series Capture the Flag: A to V. While there, Alethea acted as the official international correspondent for VVS VANNER Brasil.
Alethea has reviewed books for NPR, Locus Magazine, IGMS, and the Rutherford Reader. She also does freelance work for Writing the Other, a website that focuses on the importance for authors to write and faithfully represent characters outside their own experience.
Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea has called many places home, including: Columbia, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Northern Virginia. Her home base is currently the Space Coast of Florida, where she watches K-dramas with her teddy bear, Charlie. Together they are ARMY, VVS, and Black Roses. 🥀
Media
10 Books to Read While Waiting Impatiently for Maleficent (HuffPo)
24 Books You Should Read Based on Your Favorite TV Shows (Buzzfeed)
46 of the Most Beautiful Sentences in YA Literature (Buzzfeed)
Princess Alethea’s 11 Best Fairy Tale Movies (USA Today)
Alethea Kontis: Under the Influence of Andre Norton (USA Today)
Romance Authors Share Their Favorite Childhood Toys (USA Today)
Alethea Kontis: Wings Trip Her Fiction Trigger (USA Today)
“Everyone involved — and we do mean everyone involved — take a bow.” —Mark Kennedy, Associated Press on The Fireside Sessions by Snow Patrol and the Saturday Songwriters
Snow Patrol Announce The Fireside Sessions EP, Release New Collaborative Single (Hot Press)
SNOW PATROL and the SATURDAY SONGWRITERS release The Fireside Sessions EP on August 21st (XSNOISE)
