Ian Ségal
Master Conjurer of Literary Alchemy
“Legend is born on the dying breath of myth.”
— Ian Nathaniel Ségal
About the Author
Ian Ségal was born in New York City on the twenty-second day of the month of November in the same year that Apollo 8 orbited the moon, circling it ten times on Christmas Eve — other than this significant feat in the space race, the year as a whole was tumultuous … his birth did nothing to pacify the unrest that swept throughout that year. Shortly following his escape from the womb after tunneling out via last-minute cesarean section, Ian began designing the stratagem he would use later in life to design the architecture of conquering the outlying regions of New York City, lower New York State, and northern New Jersey from an apartment in Forest Hills, New York. He was very resourceful at an early age and facilitated the entire effort without the Internet or the card catalog at the local public library. Seriously … he did — he still has the blueprints of his master plan on microfiche. What’s microfiche? Answer: Pelagic saltwater creatures of the sea who are indigenous to the Mediterranean coastline along the south of France that make the Kessel run from Cannes to San Remo (circumventing Monte Carlo) on odd years searching for a passage in time that cannot be seen with one’s naked eye. Yes, seriously — and this is microfiche defined.
So ... (respiring — writing a bio requires steady breathing and an unwavering commitment to the effort) … after Ian’s short-lived illustrious career exploring the nefarious side of life and all of its nuances, he was uprooted following deliberations from the executive board (also known as mom and dad). The decision was reached to make the pilgrimage to Englewood, New Jersey. Not his claim to fame, but Ian lived for the next few years around the corner from Dwight Morrow High School where John Travolta dropped out at the age of sixteen to pursue a career in acting. Following a three-year stint in northern New Jersey, the executive board regrouped shortly after the onboarding of another underpaid overworked employee in the firm (Ian’s sister) and began exploring the next stage of nomadic questing. Although the destination was carefully plotted, migrating to Australia was soon thrown out after the board completed their discovery, assessment, gap analysis, and proposal for next steps. The unanimous decision was made to stay clear of Long Island (which came in as a close second) to move to a quiet new community in lower New York State featuring rolling green hills, fertile pastures, blue skies, saplings, wildlife, running water, and electricity. This was grandiose. This would become the cornerstone of Ian’s upbringing over the next fifteen years before trekking off to college.
Staying off the radar (and sometimes the grid), Ian plowed through the fields of half-day kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school, later attending Carnegie Mellon University, and even studied gemology at Santa Monica, California’s famous (maybe you heard of it) Gemological Institute of America (more on this in the following sentence). His next stop was the family business — working alongside his father, a master jeweler and artisan, in the heart of the diamond jewelry district of New York City (hence his studies in gemology). In the interest of time and concern for your attention, this next section will be abridged to maintain your concentration on this obligatory section regarding Ségal’s childhood life through his young adult years. Yes, Ian was back where he first began his journey called, for lack of a better more flamboyant word, life. He referred to this as a paradigm for making as much money as possible and spending it like a drunken sailor later—nothing against drunken sailors, but when they’re in town, anything goes — Ian was always in town, and always painting it red.
Yet, Ségal never felt fulfilled — he soon found himself revisiting his creative side which was conflated in rendering artwork and storytelling. As early as 1994, he immersed himself inside the inkwell of his imagination and began writing. He shared samples with agents who kindly critiqued him (they were customers, so they didn’t have the heart to say he basically sucked at his craft), but encouraged him to keep honing his crude skills. Ian had hope. He was determined. And he never gave up. He wrote as often as he could and was rejected as often as he had the courage to share his work with prospective eyes. Rejection goes down the throat smoother when tilted back with a dram of humiliation — sometimes a flagon is more appropriate. But he learned, and never gave up on the journey, and continued to swallow his pride, along with single malt Scotch whisky, and craft his stories. And amidst all of this, he learned how to show a story rather than tell one. But, he still tells stories to anyone who will listen (typically his pup).
Ian Ségal is currently working on three book series — a dark (and sometimes light) adult fantasy coalesced with romance, stirring horror, sautéed with seriocomic slants, marinated in eleven secret herbs and spices, and basted in hope (when Ian feels charitable to his readership); an urban fantasy for the young adult/adult community; and a third series for anyone who feels left out of the first two series and has decreed that being weird is a gift on the same level as manna from heaven. Ian welcomes all discretions and makes every effort to cater to a plethora of proclivities — the world of readers is endless, but getting them all to open a book remains a daunting task.
Ségal now lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his daughters Hannah and Chloe, his Bichon Kenzie, and on occasion his demons who visit almost semi-monthly to pilfer his pantry in search of tortilla chips, Nutella, and unopened cans of refried beans. Somewhat of a cave dweller, but not to be confused with being a troglodyte, Ian has made his home his writer’s studio — almost like a hobbit hole but absent of small humanoids with hairy shoeless feet. When he’s not entertaining family, friends, fiends, quadrupeds, cultists, and the miasma of the underworld, he spends his discretionary time writing convoluted tales for anyone interested in puzzling rhetorical flummery.
His dog thinks he ghostwrites obituaries for dead politicians.