American novelist and short story writer

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth. Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list. He is one of the most prolific science fiction/fantasy authors of all time. He has claimed that one of his greatest achievements has been to publish a book for every letter of the alphabet, from Anthonology to Zombie Lover. Anthony's family immigrated to the United States from Britain when he was four. He graduated from Goddard College in Vermont in 1956. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen while serving in the United States Army in 1958. After completing a two year stint in military service, he briefly taught school at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida before becoming a fulltime writer. Anthony currently lives with his wife on a tree farm which he owns in Florida. He and his wife had two daughters, Penny and Cheryl, and have one grandchild, Logan. On September 3, 2009, their daughter Penelope "Penny" Carolyn Jacob died from apparent respiratory paralysis following surgery for melanoma which had metastasized to her brain. She is survived by her husband and her daughter Logan. On multiple occasions he has moved from one publisher to another (taking a profitable hit series with him), when he felt the editors were unduly tampering with his work. He has even sued publishers for accounting malfeasance and won judgments in his favor. He maintains an Internet Publishers Survey in the interest of helping aspiring writers. For this service, he won the 2003 "Friend of EPIC" award for service to the electronic publishing community. His website won the Special Recognition for Service to Writers award from Preditors and Editors, an author's guide to publishers and writing services. Anthony invested as an angel investor in Xlibris at one point, and is now a co-owner along with Random House. Many of his popular novel series have been optioned for movies. His popular series Xanth has a video game, titled "Companions of Xanth" by Legend Entertainment. It is made for PCs and on CD-ROM, although it is DOS-based. There is also a board game called Xanth by Mayfair Games. Piers Anthony's novels usually end with a chapter-long Author's Note, in which he talks about himself, his life, and his experiences as they related to the process of writing the novel. He often discusses correspondence with readers and any real-world issues that influenced the novel. His writings are most similar to novelists such as Stephen Brust, Alan Dean Foster and Craig Shaw Gardner.

Also known as Jacob, Piers Anthony Dillingham