Mel Todd
Author
Mel Todd
Mel Todd is a speculative fiction author and the owner of Bad Ash Publishing, an indie press built on the belief that genre fiction deserves both craft and heart. Writing under her own name, she spans urban fantasy, epic fantasy, and science fiction — including her flagship Twisted Luck series, the Noble’s Luck trilogy, the urban sci-fi Kaylid Chronicles, and the Cori at Large series. She co-authors the Blood War series with Doug Burbey, and under the pen name Renee Lovins, writes romance for readers who want a different shelf entirely.
With 40+ titles and counting, Mel has built her catalog the way she built everything else at Bad Ash: hands-on. She’s done her own WordPress development, run her own Shopify storefront, and sold face-to-face at conventions for years — there isn’t much of the indie publishing process she hasn’t touched herself. That same DIY instinct shows up outside the writing too, in landscaping projects and home fabrication work she takes on with the same problem-solving energy she brings to a manuscript.
A longtime student of Stoic philosophy, Mel approaches both her business and her life with a clear-eyed, risk-aware practicality — she’d rather plan for the worst and write toward the best. When she’s not writing, publishing, or building something with her hands, you can usually find her at a convention panel, deep in a craft conversation, or making the case — again — that Kaylid Chronicles is sci-fi, not romance.
Doug Burbey
Doug Burbey is the universe creator of, and author in, the Blood War urban fantasy series and glitchy robot comedic Sci-Fi. He is constantly preparing to: repel the demon hordes, slay zombies, brew beer and defeat the insidious plots of the bureaucratic machinery. Doug grew up in the Philippines as a military brat learning how to cook chicken adobo, scuba diving and exploring jungle waterfalls. After life on the islands it was time to explore this mystical thing they called… snow. He went to college in Michigan and became a Detroit Lions fan in the Barry Sanders era of NFL greatness. Somehow during his frigid stay in Michigan, Doug managed to earn an undergraduate degree and received commission in the U.S. Army. He then served in numerous Army positions living in Germany, Bosnia, Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, Kansas, Maryland, Iraq and Turkmenistan. In between moving from one military assignment to another he earned a graduate degree and attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Doug did manage to survive a couple wars around the world before retiring his combat boots and putting on a suit and tie. Now his day job is as an advanced military technology development program manager. After endless hours of center aisle seated flights and brain numbing hotel room HBO movies, Doug decided that he needed an outlet for his creative endeavors. How could he take all of his worldly journeys and turn them in to a beautiful expression of his life’s experiences to bring enjoyment to others. Doug decided to bring apocalyptic mayhem to the world with a twist of humor and a few demons as a writer. With the help of an incredibly patient co-author named Mel Todd, teaching Doug what things like ‘POV’, ‘spelling’ and ‘outlines’ meant… well the Blood War series was born. Still a government stooge by day and a literary demon horde slayer by night, Doug lives and writes in Maryland with his family when not on the road travel across the country for work. During his spring/summer weekends he can often be found wearing muddy work boots with a cold beer in hand tending to his hops vines and apple orchard, just off of the Chesapeake Bay, being a part time gentleman farmer as well.
Doug Burbey
Author