Mark Piggott, a native of Phillipsburg, N.J., enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1982, beginning a 23-year career. He served on four aircraft carriers and various duty stations as a Navy Journalist before he attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer. He retired from active duty in 2006. He and his wife, Georgiene, live in Alexandria, Virginia. They have three children. His first novel, Forever Avalon, was published in 2009, followed by his second novel, The Dark Tides, in 2014. The Outlander War: Book Three of the Forever Avalon series was released in 2020. Additionally, Forever Avalon was made into an audiobook, narrated by voice artist Traci Odom. In 2021, he published the start of a new steampunk fantasy series with The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart and made into an audiobook, narrated by Melissa Barnes. At the end of 2021, Mark signed with Curious Corvid Publishing as one of their new authors for this small, independent publisher. His fantasy novella, The River of Souls, in collaboration with poet Ashley Valitutto, was published in 2022, and in 2023, the steampunk historical fiction Corsair and the Sky Pirates launched along with the sequel to The Last Magus, Dragonfire and Steel. His novels have won a slew of awards over the past years. The Outlander War won second place for fantasy in the 2021 Firebird Book Awards, The Last Magus won first place for steampunk, and in 2022, Forever Avalon won second place for fantasy. Additionally, The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart won the Grand Prize for Fiction in the 2022 Authors Marketing Guild Indie Book Awards and 3rd Place in Fantasy-Myths and Legends in The BookFest 2022 Book Awards. The River of Souls won two Firebird Book Awards and was nominated for two Indie Book Awards in 2022. Corsair and the Sky Pirates added two 2nd Place awards from The BookFest in 2023 in Fantasy-Gaslamp and Sci-Fi-Steampunk.