About Me

Athena Ryals is the award-winning, Illinois-based author of the Honor Bound series. Their short fiction and poetry have been featured in Erato, Z Publishing's Colorado's Emerging Writers and America's Emerging Poets, and Colorado School of Mines' High Grade. 

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Honor Bound: Book 1 is the winner of the Wishing Shelf's Red Ribbon Award and is a 5-star Reader's Favorite Awards book. It is also a Finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

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Honor Bound: Book 2 is the Silver Medalist for the LGBTQIA category of the Reader View's Literary Awards, and is a 5-star Reader's Favorite Awards  book.

 

They are currently working on Honor Bound: Book 6, set to release in spring of 2025. Vera, a prequel to Honor Bound, is currently in the works as well.

 

They graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering. While they were there, they took every writing elective available to them. When they were laid off of their engineering job in 2015, they had to start a new career, this time in EMS. 

 

A writing challenge in September of 2019 threw them back into writing and they have not stopped since. 

 

They work on an ambulance as a paramedic. They live with their dog and cat.