Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob (born August 6, 1934 in Oxford, England) is an English American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is most famous for his long-running series set in the fictional realm of Xanth. Many of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list. He is one of the most prolific science fiction/fantasy authors of all time. He has claimed that one of his greatest achievements has been to publish a book for every letter of the alphabet, from Anthonology to Zombie Lover. Anthony's family emigrated to the United States from Britain when he was four. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen while serving in the United States Army in 1958. After completing a two year stint in military service, he briefly taught public school before becoming a fulltime writer. Anthony currently lives with his wife on a tree farm which he owns in Florida. He and his wife have two daughters and one grandchild. On multiple occasions he has moved from one publisher to another (taking a profitable hit series with him), when he felt the editors were unduly tampering with his work. He has even sued publishers for accounting malfeasance and won judgments in his favor. He maintains an Internet Publishers Survey in the interest of helping aspiring writers. For this service, he won the 2003 "Friend of EPIC" award for service to the electronic publishing community. His website won the Special Recognition for Service to Writers award from Preditors and Editors, an author's guide to publishers and writing services. Anthony invested as an angel investor in Xlibris at one point, and is now a co-owner along with Random House. (via Wikipedia)