Philip Athans

Philip Athans was born in 1964 in Rochester, New York, but was raised in Chicago. He is Managing Editor for Wizards of the Coast Book Publishing, and wrote some of the first Forgotten Realms books, as well as many others like Lies of Light in 2006 and Realms of War coming up in 2008. He is well-known for writing the novelizations of the computer games, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

Background
Athans grew up reading Marvel comics and Starlog magazines, and watching Star Trek. He graduated from film school in 1985 and began circulating his own literary magazine called Alternative Fiction &amp; Poetry.

Career
Although Athans used to work in a record store while working on his writing career in his spare time, he was taken on in the book publising department of TSR in 1995, and survived the transition to Wizards of the Coast. In 1997 became Managing Editor for Wizards of the Coast Book Publishing, where he’s spent most of his time as the Forgotten Realms novel line editor. There he has edited dozens of anthologies and novels, and continues to write his own. His most recent works are the two novels in the Watercourse trilogy.

Novels

 * Baldur's Gate
 * Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
 * Annihilation (book V of the War of the Spider Queen series)
 * The Watercourse trilogy:
 * Whisper of Waves
 * Lies of Light
 * Scream of Stone

Short stories

 * "The Lady and the Shadow" in Realms of the Arcane
 * "Astride the Wind" in Realms of Shadow