David E Graham

David E Graham grew up in rural Virginia, the kind of childhood where the worlds inside books and on screens felt more alive than the one outside his window. Raised in a strict religious household that kept him at arm’s length from much of the world around him, he found community in the places others built from imagination — the vivid universes of science fiction and fantasy that reached through the page and the screen to speak directly to a kid sitting alone in his room. He became quietly awestruck by the people who could do that: turn art into something meaningful enough to find someone who needed it.

That longing never left him.

As a teenager, David wrote — not for anyone else, just for himself. Stories lived in notebooks and in his head, characters growing in his imagination for years without anywhere to go. He dreamed of becoming a screenwriter, of making films of his own. But as he got older and real life took over, writing fell to the wayside. A career path demanded attention. The stories waited.

Then, in 2023, he picked up a Brandon Sanderson novel. Something clicked. Sanderson’s richly detailed worlds and deeply character-driven storytelling resonated in a way that reignited everything David had set aside. He didn’t just want to read those kinds of stories — he wanted to build them. His own worlds. His own characters. On his own terms, without waiting for someone else to bring them to life.

Staring down forty years of age on the horizon in 2024, he finally asked himself the question he’d been avoiding: Why are you holding back?

He stopped holding back.

With the landscape of modern self-publishing opening a genuine path to readers, David began writing in earnest. He completed his debut novel, Tracer, in 2024 and published it through his own imprint, Smeared Black Ink. A second novel, Broken Alliance, followed — earning a Gold Award from Literary Titan and drawing comparisons to The Expanse and Mass Effect. He was accepted into the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a milestone that affirmed what he already knew: this wasn’t a hobby. It was a calling, finally answered.

The Tracer Series grew from a cast of characters David had been developing for years. The story began with Andre, the captain of The Venture, but it was Bex — an androgynous, deeply vulnerable they/them character — who truly ignited the series. Writing Bex demanded care, honesty, and a willingness to sit with discomfort. Nurturing that character into something whole across two books became one of the most meaningful creative experiences of David’s life.

His fiction doesn’t flinch from hard questions. Who deserves to lead — and what does power do to those who hold it? What does loyalty cost when the cause turns out to be corrupt? What does it mean to do the right thing in a universe that rarely rewards it? These are the questions that shaped a boy in rural Virginia, and they’re the questions that shape every story David writes today.

He lives in East Tennessee with his wife, Lisa, and is currently at work on a new standalone science fiction novel — a story of survival, class, rebellion, and the stubborn persistence of hope.