Emily Renk Hawthorne was born and raised in Southern California. Her mother and father are from Taiwan and Illinois, respectively. Emily’s always had a special love for fantasy and sci-fi books.

In elementary school, Emily wrote a story about a lonely fish that joined a school of fish for companionship and safety in numbers. The story was selected by a traveling performance group and performed at an assembly in front of her school. From then on, Emily was hooked! (Pun intended!)

She continued to submit to writing contests in the children’s magazine Cricket, placing a couple times, but took a break from writing once she started college.

Emily worked as a general dentist on a Native American reservation in Northern California and in community health clinics in San Francisco and the Central Coast. After 11 years in full-time dentistry (with too many 6-day weeks), she was able to go part-time to focus more on her writing and to spend time with her child.

Of Mountains and Seas is her debut novel.