Born in the shadow of a Pacific Northwest volcano to a family of travelers, CC Clayton’s life was steeped in adventure from the start. His early years were spent in the untamed wilderness along the Lower Colorado River, where home was a makeshift houseboat. Later, his family moved to the vast Southwest desert, living in a converted school bus-turned-motor home, distinctive for its inlaid buffalo skull hood ornament and wooden-shingled sides. In these unconventional settings, CC mastered bush craft, whittled his own toys, and discovered his greatest passion: reading.
He devoured fantasy novels by David Eddings, Terry Brooks, and Margaret Weis, alongside science fiction works by Madeleine L’Engle, Robert A. Heinlein, and Harry Harrison. These author’s speculative worlds captivated him, sparking a lifelong fascination with reality’s hidden dimensions. At fifteen, he penned his first novel—a tale about gnomes that, despite encouraging words from the local small-town librarian, left him yearning to match the depth of his literary heroes. He knew what he had to do, get more experience—raw, untamed experience he could use in his writing. He needed to sound his barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world, because only then would he truly be ready to tell a story that sang.
This quest for life’s authenticity led CC to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard at eighteen. Over his twenty-five-year career, he found the adventure he looked for: confronting smugglers, conducting rescues, battling storms, and shouldering the weight of command. When he finally returned to writing, these experiences—both triumphs and tribulations—gave his stories the depth and authenticity he had long sought.
Between writing sessions, CC replenishes his creative well through outdoor pursuits. He explores woodland trails with his family husky, traverses America’s rugged back country on his adventure motorcycle, and discovers secluded lakes by paddle board. He enjoys storytelling in all its forms—from books to video games—and has a particular fondness for gritty adventure stories, page-turning thrillers, and stories that make you question the fabric of reality. Drawn to the strange and supernatural, CC approaches storytelling as both dreamer and rebel, romantic and goofball, pulling whispered tales from the ether onto the page with visceral force. Today, CC lives with his ever-patient wife and dynamic teenage son atop a mountain overlooking the Ohio River Valley. Each morning, as he watches the sunrise paint the landscape, he still finds himself asking that eternal question: “What if?”