Kristin Wayne Marquis was born in 1975, in a small New England town.
Like many young men, Kristin struggled to find a path that felt right after high school. Unsure of what to do in life and teetering on the chasm between childhood and adulthood, he entered the Marine Corps, foolishly becoming an infantryman to follow in the footsteps of his father.
During his time in the military, his eyes were opened to the social issues plaguing American culture and the injustices of the world. His time overseas provided him countless hours to read and write to escape the dystopian reality surrounding him. Discharged for injuries to his hip, ankle, and spine, Kristin was forced to refocus on his passion for learning and creating, and he entered the College of William & Mary, wanting to make the world a better place. Although he started as a public policy major, Kristin quickly switched to education, married his high school sweetheart, and graduated with multiple distinctions.
After college, he taught high school Language Arts, where he enjoyed inspiring his students to find the secrets hidden in books and to write their own tales as poems, essays, and short stories. During this time, he also coached track, ran a creative expressions magazine, and graded more papers than a human should ever grade. Between his injuries and the realities of being an overburdened and underpaid teacher, Kristin and his wife took their children and moved back to their hometown in Massachusetts to raise their two daughters on a small family farm.
It was during this period that he became involved in renewable energy and town governance. Working to renovate his own farm while raising animals, homeschooling their children, and working on the town’s Energy Committee, Kristin helped his town become one of the first “Green Communities” in the state. During the long winters, Kristin also started writing and illustrating children’s stories for his own kids while outlining the novels he imagined having time to write someday. The research and work Kristin did on his farm and for the town helped him create a renewable energy development company with a close friend. Together, they developed two of the largest municipal solar power projects in the state at that time. Although these projects were ideologically fulfilling and hopefully benefited the world, Kristin watched investors choose projects purely based on profits instead of environmental and social benefits. This discouraging reality drove him to find a new passion, and he moved back to Virginia to transition to writing.
Kristin’s first novel, Children of the 6th Extinction, was quickly followed by another, and another book as he quickly discovered his passion for writing. His characters and storylines reflect the depth of human experience he gained from being a factory worker, an infantry Marine, a disabled veteran, a Language Arts teacher, a farmer, a renewable energy developer, a parent of two strong women, and a husband to his high school sweetheart. With a deep love for the environment, themes of climate change and the need for sustainability often intertwine with the other elements of his stories. Although some of these tales are dystopian in nature, there is a hope that such horrors will help promote the conversations needed to avoid such a future.
If you venture into his town, you may see him riding his electric cargo bike or walking with his wife. Feel free to stop and chat with him about the world: he loves a good conversation and is always willing to debate the future of humanity.