Pen Fairchild's family read fairy tales to her from the beginning. She acquired the habit of reading on her own when she was so small she could barely hold the book, and read what was on her parents' and grandparents' shelves. She quickly devoured the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Kenneth Grahame, Enid Blyton, and other popular children's works and authors and continued without stopping to more adult fare. In short order, her favorite fiction writers became Somerset Maugham, Agatha Christie, P.G. Wodehouse, and Evelyn Waugh. Her favorite nonfiction topic was archaeology, especially books about Schliemann's discoveries and anything about Atlantis. Then she discovered her grandmother's treasure trove of Georgette Heyer Regency romances. She still enjoys those authors, as well as many others including Julian Barnes, Robert Barnard, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett, Susan Beth Pfeffer, and J.K. Rowling.

"Truth is," she says, "I owe a debt to those writers I can never repay. The worlds that they created were as real to me as my own, and I not only lost but found myself in them."

It was a short step from loving to read to writing, but it wasn't what Fairchild thought she'd do as an adult. Rather, as a child, she dreamed of being an astronaut or a detective. Somehow, though, the appeal of the writing process prevailed. Now, her goal is to create something that other readers will enjoy exploring as much as she's enjoyed the worlds created by her favorite authors.

Fairchild's interest in Utopia originated in philosophical debates with university classmates. Who decides what makes a system Utopian? Is one person's Utopia another's Dystopia? Also, what happens when young people who've been brought up to believe that they are the inheritors of the only true Utopia are forced to cope with a very different reality? The idea of a distant world colonized centuries before by wealthy power players from Earth took shape quickly, as did the concept of "the last domain" led by a highly privileged elite with enough savvy to placate in all ways possible those whom they ruled. The Royal Progress Series begins when the next generation of rulers is trapped by the fallout when this seemingly stable system implodes and they are forced to flee into the dreaded Outlands.

"I thought of the Royal Progress Series as 'Clueless' meets 'Game of Thrones'," Fairchild admits. "Spoiled young adults forced to fend for their lives in a decidedly non-Utopian situation."

“Epic in scope, boasting a vast cast and intricate mythology . . .”
– Kirkus Reviews