Wayne Thomas Batson was born in Seabrook, MD in 1968. During the early years he tortured his older brothers and sisters, doing those things that only younger siblings can do to get on your nerves.He attended Gabriel DuVal Senior High School and wrote this for his YearbookSenior Goals: To become a professional writer or artist. During the high school and early college years, he played lead guitar for a rock band called "Contagious." They were catchy, but apparently not enough to get a record deal.Having completed the rigorous Holmes English Literature Curriculum, he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1991. In 1996, he received his first graduate degree in Counseling. He has continued his studies with 36 credit hours of graduate-level Reading courses.Wayne Thomas Batson has spent the last fifteen years teaching Reading and English to middle schools students. He pioneered the active instruction of Strategic Reading in Anne Arundel County and has written Reading and English Curricula for Anne Arundel County, Carroll County, and Howard County Public Schools. Most recently, he helped develop the Challenge Reading Curriculum for advanced readers in Howard County, Maryland.Wayne Thomas Batson lives in Eldersburg with his beautiful wife of eleven years and his four wonderful young children. Besides dividing his time between family, teaching, and writing, he likes to read, golf, play PS2, travel to the beach, play electric guitar, and create 3D artwork.Wayne Thomas Batson is the Bestselling author of five adventure novels including the fantasy epic Door Within Trilogy and the pirate duo Isle of Swords and Isle of Fire. A middle school Reading and English teacher for 18 years, Batson loves to challenge—and be challenged by—his students. So, when he began writing stories to supplement the school district’s curriculum, it was his students who taught their teacher a lesson. Batson’s students were so taken by one of the stories that, over a thirteen year span, they pushed him to make it into a full-length novel. That story became The Door Within. Since then, Batson’s students continue to be his frontline editors. Says Batson, “Two things you can count on from middle school students: Intelligence and Honesty. Kids are so much more perceptive than a lot of us ‘Big Folk’ give them credit for. And when something’s not write in the story, they’ll tell you about in very clear terms.” Batson is teaming up with author and friend Christopher Hopper for a new book series, The Berinfell Prophecies. The first book, Curse of the Spider King, hit bookstores in October 2009. It promises to turn the traditional “portal fantasy” on its head, posing the question: What would happen if the fantasy came to us? Batson believes his books appeal to so many kids and adults because, at a deep level, we all long to do something that matters, and we all dream of another world.