Emily C. A. Snyder (born September 10, 1977 in Amherst, Massachusetts) is an American novelist, playwright and director.
She attended the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, for her undergraduate degree where she studied theatre and literature. In 2009, she received her masters in Theatre Education from Emerson College in Boston, MA. She has taught at Saint Bernadette Catholic School in Northborough, MA, Hudson Catholic High School and Hudson High School, Hudson, MA, and the Performing Arts Center of Metrowest in Framingham, MA. Currently, she lives in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
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Snyder is the author of the Twelve Kingdoms Novels, set in an alternative Celtic world, published by Arx Publishers, LLC.[1] Her first novel, Niamh and the Hermit, subtitled "A Fairy Tale" received mixed reviews, mostly based around the rich but archaic language of the book. Reactions ranged from Thomas Howard's (Author of C.S. Lewis: Man of Letters):
To such Amazon.com reviews as:
Niamh and the Hermit featured original artwork and music by the author. A second novella, Charming the Moon was published soon after.
Snyder has also published what she terms a "Gothic Austen" novel, Nachtstürm Castle from Girlebooks.com. This sequel to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey has received generally positive reviews from Austen aficionados.[4]
From 1999-2000, Snyder published under the pseudonym Elspeth on the Republic of Pemberley.[5]
Marion Zimmer Bradley first published Snyder in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, with the short story: If We Shadows Have Offended.
Soon after that, Snyder was invited to contribute to Sword and Sorceress, an on-going anthology edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Snyder's short story Better Seen Than Heard appeared in Sword and Sorceress XIX.
From 1998-present, Snyder has been active in the theatre, working primarily as a director and playwright.
In 2009, she began publishing her plays through Playscripts, Inc.[6] These include:
Many of Snyder's original plays and musicals have been completed and produced, including:
In addition to working with the schools listed above, Snyder has also directed for the Sudbury Savoyards[7] (2004 Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance), the Hudson/Marlborough Arts Alliance[8] (2005 Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate) and Framingham Community Theatre[9] (2010 Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None).
In 2000, Snyder launched the Christian Guide to Fantasy[10] which was in answer to many Christian parents initial fear of the Harry Potter novels. The site was a series of reviews of popular fantasy novels, meant as a guide for the concerned parents. It has remained a mostly frozen site for the past several years.
For a few years, Snyder and her college partner Annie McAndrew co-edited Tower of Ivory E-zine, which featured short-stories, articles, poems, artwork and interviews, of such notables as Teresa Edgerton,[11] whom she credits as one of her greatest literary influences[12]. Tower of Ivory closed in 2003.