A little about me...
Hi, I’m Brice J. Chandler.
I’m a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient — a detail my wife insists I should mention.
I started writing my first novel, Whiskey Jack, back in 2000 during the long stretches of downtime in garrison and while deployed. Eventually, I finished both my time in the service and the book.
Since then, life has taken me down a lot of different roads. I’ve worked as everything from a journeyman pewtersmith to a shift supervisor at a chemical plant producing agricultural products. Each job taught me something different about life outside the military, storytelling, and the strange ways people survive ordinary days.
I also earned an English degree from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, and I currently work as a union operator at a chemical plant and part-time as a journalist for a local newspaper in my area.
As for the writing side of things, I’ve always loved big stories, games, and worlds that feel just a little bigger than real life. Back in high school, a few friends and I decided we wanted to write an epic story that combined our love of Dungeons & Dragons, video games, manga, anime, and action-adventure movies.
Shining Darkness is what grew out of that idea.
When I’m not working on my next end-of-the-world scenario, covering a community event, or writing about high school sports, I’m usually helping my wife, who is a professional photographer. Most of the time, that means carrying lighting equipment or serving as a test subject. Occasionally, I even get to take pictures.
I still play games whenever I can, especially RPGs. Some of my biggest movie influences are Indiana Jones, Mad Max, and Conan, though these days I’ll follow almost anything with a great story.
Post-apocalyptic fiction and LitRPG are two of my favorite genres to read and write, and I’ve had stories appear in several anthologies.
My wife and I live in a small town along the Mississippi River in Missouri, under the loving and occasionally unreasonable rule of our daughters.