About Me

Nathaniel J. Trepke was born in February 2001 in Victoria, British Columbia, and has lived in Delta since 2008. He has enjoyed reading and writing from the beginning. However, since they felt too much like homework growing up, he rarely did them outside of school and instead spent his time playing video games and tinkering with his 3D printer. It was not until senior high school that he started to view writing differently. A short story assignment in French class, followed by a Creative Writing course the following year, saw Nathaniel expand his horizons with tales of World War II tank battles and a fantasy adventure that would evolve into The Chronicles of Elaria. High praise from teachers encouraged him to keep exploring.

 But then Nathaniel graduated from high school. Writing fell by the wayside as he attended Simon Fraser University for Computer science. There, he pursued his dream—one of many—of making video games. Between studying for school and experimenting with the Unity game engine, he had little time to write fiction. 

However, the creative seeds that had been sown in high school never stopped growing. Nathaniel continued reading fantasy on the long transit rides to and from campus. The inspiration kept coming along with an increasing awareness that coding and computers were not his preference. Often, he was the only programmer in class who would rather write an essay than optimise a sorting algorithm. Gradually, fiction writing eclipsed computer-related hobbies, which only existed in the first place because Nathaniel liked creating worlds, characters, and legends.

Writing directly onto a page, rather than jumping through hoops of level design, programming, and asset development needed for games, proved a much more efficient way to breathe life into stories. Nathaniel revived one of his high school short stories into a full-length novel. It was terrible, but it was an invaluable learning experience and an encouraging step down a career path Nathaniel had never expected to take. After further online research, lots of practice, and studying works by other fantasy authors such as Brandon Sanderson, Stephen R. Lawhead, and Michael J. Sullivan, Nathaniel honed his craft until he produced his first audience-ready novel in 2023: The Dawn of Darkness. He self-published it in 2024 with the help of friends and family.

By the time Nathaniel graduated with a Computer Science degree, writing had taken centre stage. He works as a copywriter while meeting his daily fantasy word quotas, with plans to finish the Chronicles of Elaria and much, much more.