The Onset

A book lover from a tender age, eleven-year-old Boris Romanovsky jotted his first novel down in his exercise book, illustrating it with pictures of his own design. It was then that he proudly announced, "I'm gonna be an author!"

His family, friends, and even strangers didn't seem to share his enthusiasm. "You gotta be kiddin'," they told him, pointing out that wordsmiths of today couldn't support themselves with their writing, let alone provide for a family.

So Boris reluctantly parted with his dream-which didn't mean he stopped reading. Once he'd finished high school, he went on to uni to specialize in architecture and civil engineering. For the first two years, he excelled at his studies, spending every summer honing his skills as he progressed from construction foreman to engineer, finally becoming an urban designer in his own right.

Still, he was beginning to realize this wasn't the kind of future he'd envisioned for himself. The daily grind of urban development seemed to stifle his creative spark, finally driving him to a growing feeling of unhappiness. The only things that kept him going were the books he continued to read-lots of them. In due course, he didn't even notice himself resume his own writing.

Boris was reluctant to make his first attempts public for quite a while-until finally he published one of his novels through an online writing portal. Much to his surprise, Lady Luck finally knocked at his door as the book earned a whole bunch of enthusiastic readers.

Boris has never looked back ever since. These days, books are his life and his livelihood. He's penned over a dozen novels and earned thousands of faithful followers. And now he's finally ready to share his body of work with the entire English-speaking world.