David A. Tatum was born in Ithaca, NY, the son of a fashion designer and a book-collecting librarian who later became a spy. By the time he was four years old, he'd mastered how to spell the word "cat," which made inevitable his decision to become an author. Moving to Washington DC in order to keep his parents company, he started training in kenpo by the age of seven. Sadly, after failing to achieve his blackbelt despite twenty years of training, he gave up hopes of a career in martial arts and resumed his love of writing. By the time he was in high school, he joined a national organization dedicated to adventure and exploration -- later becoming a chapter president -- with the goal of using it to identify a route into the center of the Earth. Unfortunately, the Suffolk, Virginia caves he explored were all dead ends. When his father died, he inherited a large library that there was no space for in his home and a life-threatening dental condition. He spent the next year and a half dealing with both. When he found that a degree in history offered him no local job opportunities better than your average fast food joint, he decided on a career that typically earns even less money: Professional writing. Now he's trying to juggle writing and publishing far too many series of books at once in a variety of genre, predominantly fantasy and science fiction.