Hello, I'm Sam!
Sam Schreiber is a fantasy writer who started her first story in 5th grade free period and hasn't stopped writing since. Masquerading as a tech executive by day, Sam has never stopped nurturing her passion for creating compelling stories with complex characters and rich worlds. She is a graduate of American University with a BA in Literature.
Sam was born and raised in Texas, where she now resides with her husband, son, and three fur-babies.
Her debut novel, FORGOTTEN ATNAMA, was released in December 2024 and is the first book of the Anjidia Chronicles young adult fantasy trilogy.
My Hero's Journey
I blame early 90s television. Ghostwriter and Are You Afraid of the Dark? showed me I could turn the images in my head into stories I could share with others so they could enjoy them too. My first novel was a middle grade ghost story I drafted each day in free period in 5th grade. Since these were the days pre-cloud storage, though, sadly that draft was lost in a move later that year.
I have only one word to explain why I didn't try to draft another novel until my senior year of college: fanfiction. Yes, like most elder millennials, I spent my formative years crafting self-insert narratives that spanned a multiverse of canons. I was an angel, a wizard, even a pioneer on the Oregon Trail. If I'd had a portal fiction rewards program, I would have racked up enough frequent flyer miles to cross off that bucket list item of traveling to every continent in our world.
By 2007, I was able to keep my feet planted firmly in our reality and decided to write about characters who were not me, in worlds no one had ever seen before. That year I plotted out what would become the Anjidia Chronicles trilogy. I completed the draft in 2008 after graduation when, in true elder millennial fashion, I moved home with an expensive degree and no career lined up.
At that time, the trilogy was a standalone novel—a portal fantasy you'll be shocked, shocked!, to learn. I queried that baby after one round of what amounted to line edits. I even got a full request from my dream agent. I made some amazing author friends in the early days of social media and self-publishing. And, after making it through the rejections and the recession, I decided to shelve the book and enter the workforce (after a short-lived detour teaching abroad).
In 2010, I started my career in tech. I never stopped writing, but I also let myself think publishing was out of reach. I fell in love. I traveled. I got married. I bought a house. I had a kid. My life has been amazing. And I never stopped dreaming of holding a published copy of a story I wrote in my hands.
In 2018, I pulled ANJIDIA off the digital shelf and blew the dust off it. I broke it into a trilogy, changed the POV, added new characters, removed whole species from the planet, and drafted the books as they exist today. After beta reads, pitch contests, and another round of rejections (54 over THREE YEARS), back onto the digital shelf Lili and her world went. I spent 2023 creating. Reconnecting with the joy I felt at age 10. And in 2024, I'm ready to take the leap and bring the Anjidia Chronicles books to the world myself. Let's go!