Bio / Media

100-Word Bio

Alethea Kontis is a storm chaser, adventurer, 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. 🥀

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Alethea Kontis, courtesy Lumos Studio

“The patron saint of Glitter Goths everywhere!“Tweet

Z Brewer
Author

“Alethea is one of the lights of the world.” Tweet

Gareth L. Powell
Author

“Listen to this Amazing and Magical Scribe.” Tweet

Rick Worthy
Actor

“She who leaves a trail of glitter.”   Tweet

Diana Peterfreund
Author

“The beauty of a princess, the confidence of a queen, the brilliance of a writer, and the demeanor of a cheerful fairy comedian!” Tweet

Cheyenne Z.
Blogger

“I want to live in (Alethea’s) head because I think that might be the most interesting place in the world!!!!” Tweet

Ellen Oh
Author

“Alethea Kontis: Awesome, racks up award nominations, wears tiaras.” Tweet

Ferrett Steinmetz
Author

“Alethea Kontis IS fairy tales.” Tweet

Jim C. Hines
Author

“If Neil Gaiman and the Brothers Grimm had a child who grew up to weave fairy tales, she would be Alethea Kontis.” Tweet

J.T. Ellison
Author

“The faerie princess of the worlds of weird.” Tweet

Jonathan Maberry
Author
Long Bio

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and fangirl. She is responsible for creating the epic fairy tale fantasy realm of Arilland, and dabbling in a myriad of other worlds beyond. Her award-winning writing has been published for multiple age groups across all genres. She is the creator of “Princess Alethea’s Fairy Tale Rants,” and she hosted Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow at Dragon Con for ten years. 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. She is a also a book reviewer for NPR.

Alethea’s YA 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. Tales of Arilland, a short story collection set in the same fairy tale world, 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 her YA paranormal rom-com When Tinker Met Bell. In 2019, the third in her Harmswood Academy trilogy–Besphinxed–won the Scribe Award, presented by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. In 2019, she was one of two winners to receive the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant.

Princess Alethea was given the honor of speaking about fairy tales at the Library of Congress in 2013. In 2015, she gave a keynote address at the Lewis Carroll Society’s Alice150 Conference in New York City, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

During the 2020 lockdown, Alethea and other Snow Patrol fans teamed up with lead singer Gary Lightbody to create over a dozen original songs. Their first 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.

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea currently lives on the Space Coast of Florida. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted, plays really bad acoustic guitar, and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea and the magic, wonderful world in which she lives at aletheakontis.com


Media
Daily News Journal, Feb 14, 2009
Charlemagne Montesquieu, the Marquis of Albec