Biography of an Author Extraordinaire
Aydin Albright original as Alan Fardtl was born in 708 EoC to a family of modest means in one of the many middle-class districts of
Sumner, the capital city of the western nation of Heldrin. His upbringing wasn't much to speak of, he never truly lived without nor did he live with a silver spoon in his mouth. Average would be the perfect description for Alan's youth. Though one thing that made him stand out amongst his companions and peers was his inexhaustible imagination. Alan would constantly come up with fantastical stories, claiming to his friends that he had encountered a miniature dragon in the storm drain near his home, or had been whisked away for a nighttime adventure by the spirit of a past King of Heldrin.
Alan began writing his adventurous stories down before he hit the age of ten, jotting them down on loose pieces of paper he found, and eventually, in countless journals, he would purchase using his small monthly allowance. These fantastical stories and writings would often get him ridiculed amongst his peers, even the adults in his life would label him as having his head too far in the clouds. Despite his natural ability to write, a rare and useful skill, his parents would soon turn on him as well, believing he wasted this talent on juvenile and outlandish topics.
By the time he was a teenager, his parents grew so concerned over this perceived inappropriate use of writing acumen, would send Alan to a strict all-boys educational facility called Typl's School for Miscreant Adolescents. Here Alan would spend his teenage years, under the strict watch of his teachers, amongst an often rowdy student body. Alan was not an immediate fit here, nor would he ever truly climate. While he was certainly a bit peculiar, he was never a miscreant. He did not get into much trouble with anyone, let alone the law, he rarely stayed out past dusk, often preferring to come home early and write. His time at Typl's School for Miscreant Adolescents was difficult, to say the least, and he endured much bullying and ridicule, much greater than ever before. Despite his teacher's attempts at culling his perchance for fantasy writing, he continued to write such stories, hiding them from his educators and school peers.
Once, Alan graduated from Typl's School he only briefly returned home, only to gather his remaining things and move out. His time at Typl's had strained his relationship with his family and they would rarely speak after he left home this final time. He gathered the meagre savings he had earned during his teenage years from helping local businesses with various chores, or even by writing the occasional letter for an illiterate associate. These savings were spent moving into a small apartment in a poorer neighbourhood of Sumner.
Here he would begin to write in earnest, determined to use his writing as his sole income, and while he wished to make a living purely from his stories even he knew that was impossible at the time. So he would offer his writing services to anybody who needed them, though he continued to write dreamy short stories and epic novellas in his spare time. At first, he would write for just about anybody who required a steady hand or a strong grasp of the written word. Writing for people who needed to send important personal or business letters, for tavern menus, and even for the occasional local bureaucrat who needed a slight flourish to his most recent taxation notice. Not overly exciting but it allowed Alan to get by, pay his rent, and write his own pieces on the side. He carried on this way for several years, not entirely dissatisfied but knowing his full potential awaited just around the corner.
His personal writings didn't attract much attention during these years, only being printed in small time publications, or when he printed them himself using an old manual printing press he had purchased second hand. It had cost him nearly his entire savings but it was fully worth it to him. During this time Alan began to use the pen name Aydin Albright and shortly thereafter adopted the name fully as his own. The author has stated in interviews that he was drawn to the name after a dream he had one night. Within the dream, he saw a sparkling display of lights that shown and bloomed in waves of colour and sound. When he awoke he felt as if he needed to adopt a new persona, one that matches the magnificence of the vision he had been gifted during the night. Later on, he attributed this dream as a gift from a visiting resident of
The Dream Tower of Gloria named
Children of the Hourglass.
Though others have assumed it was to distance himself from his family name in which he holds continued disdain for due in part to his parent's lack of support for his writings and for betraying him to that nasty school. Which is entirely untrue according to the author.
Shortly after he adopted the name Aydin Albright he released the first short story that solely focused on The Dream Tower of Gloria as its topic. It was about a young child who had gotten lost in a forest near their home and had subsequently stumbled upon the Tower and entered it seeking shelter. Within the Tower, Albright described the child encountering wonders unseen within the walls of Sumner or anywhere on the continent before being lead home by one of the Children of the Hourglass. But sadly not many would read this story either, as Albright could not find a publisher and had to hand out costly print outs from his homemade press. These homemade print outs go for princely sums nowadays and are a highly sought after item for collectors of the author's works.
Then suddenly, Albright would cease to release any writings whatsoever, and disappeared from the city of Sumner altogether. Not that many outside of his few associates would've noticed, as Albright kept a fairly discreet and introverted lifestyle. He would disappear from the capital for over four years.
This is the time period in which Albright, supposedly fed up with his current lot in life, decided to pack up his few belongings and travel the world. During his time away from Sumner is when he supposedly began collecting stories of the Tower from hundreds of people from across the world. In a now-famous piece of recollection, Albright writes that he had grown tired, and felt that his pieces were stale and disingenuous. He wanted to discover true stories of The Dream Tower of Gloria, the same one that visited his dreams often and had inspired him so much.
Albright would take meticulous notes during his four-plus long year sojourn abroad, both on the stories he was told about encounters with the Tower and on all of his personal adventures along the way. He would travel the world over, including the cascading waves of the Island Frontier of the Vilanto Sea, the deep and foreboding Jungles of Mijhail, and even the shifting sands of Baizair. He would describe perilous moments like when pirates boarded the vessel he was travelling on off the coast of Ithosia, or when he was invited to an all-night celebration in the Gnomish capital of Bellbrook in which they ended up partying for nearly a week straight instead of only a single night. Though he has stated that his favourite moment came when he spent an evening telling fables and bedtime stories to a group of children at an orphanage in Bastion.
Eventually, however, Albright would indeed return to Sumner, having stopped in every location he could feasibly reach. For obvious reasons, he did not make it to
The Ruined Plateau of Thysduin nor was he able to retrieve permission to enter
The Empire of Aldelgis, though he has since visited the latter due to his increase in celebrity.
After his return, he would spend nearly a year compiling these stories into a short story compilation he would title
Children of Dreams - Stories and Poems from the Dream Tower. He would convince a local book store owner and publisher to print several copies of the book. The published owed him a favour from work done in years prior. Only a few dozen were printed of this first edition, another highly south after, and expensive item for collectors.
Amazingly these copies sold within only a few short days to the shock of the book store owner. Excitedly he printed more books, and when those sold out, he printed more and more. The publisher quickly made a tidy sum for his gamble on this unproven author, and Albright had quickly recouped his lost savings and then some from the multiple years-long journeys he had taken. Over the next few years, the book would become a massive success, being printed and sold in dozens of cities and towns across the continent.
Albright continues to write to this day, though he hasn't released any of this new material to the general public yet stating that he is saving it for his next compilation. Nowadays Albright spends much of his time at speakings and seminars, travelling to various towns across the western coast, conversing with excited crowds about the wonderous stories in his book and the journeys on how he found them.
This bio was written and published by Aydin Albright - Award-Winning Author and Journeyman
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