Mary Kirchoff

Born	Mary L. Kirchoff Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States
Occupation	Author, editor
Nationality	United States
Genre	Role-playing games, fantasy
Spouse	Steve Winter (September 1985-) Mark Hamilton

Mary L. Kirchoff is an American author of fantasy and young adult novels.

Kirchoff was born and raised in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the city where the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game was invented. "I went to school with Ernie Gygax and a number of people who later worked for TSR... I was vaguely aware of the people who played things like the D&D game at school. Then I went away to college and learned more about roleplaying games. I realized [they] were coming from my home town." Kirchoff graduated from Lawrence University with a B.A. in English. She was hired by TSR as the editor of the Polyhedron newszine in 1982, shortly after its second issue. Kirchoff also did graphic design for Dragon magazine, and worked with Roger Moore on TSR's Ares science-fiction magazine.

Kirchoff's first published book, Light on Quests Mountain, was set in GammaWorld for TSR's Endless Quest series. She later wrote other books in the collection. Kirchoff decided to write full-time, supported by her then-boyfriend. TSR game editor and designer Steve Winter. In September 1985, Kirchoff married Steve Winter. She worked on books such as The Art of the Dragonlance Saga and Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, and later left then rejoined the company as a full-time editor. Meanwhile, Kirchoff began looking for a new Forgotten Realms book to follow Darkwalker on Moonshae: "I went to the slush pile and read the first 30 pages of a book called Echoes of the Third Magic by a guy named Bob Salvatore. The story didn't really fit what we were looking for, but there was something about the writing that grabbed me."

...
Wikipedia