TJ Klune

Travis John Klune (born May 20, 1982) is an American author of fantasy and romantic fiction, best known for his New York Times bestselling novel The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020). Born and raised in Roseburg, Oregon, Klune began writing fiction as a child and eventually left a career as an insurance claims examiner to write full time. He is openly queer and has ADHD, and his personal experiences with asexuality, queerness, and neurodiversity deeply inform the characters and themes in his work. Klune published his debut novel Bear, Otter and the Kid in 2011, which won recognition as one of Amazon's top LGBTQ+ books of that year. He went on to write the Lambda Literary Award–winning Into This River I Drown (2013) and developed several successful series, including the Tales from Verania fantasy-comedy series, the Green Creek werewolf series, and the YA Extraordinaries superhero series. His writing consistently features LGBTQ+ characters in positive, authentic representations. The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020), published by Tor Books, became his breakthrough mainstream hit—a cozy fantasy novel inspired in part by Canada's Sixties Scoop. It won the 2021 Alex Award and the 2021 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, and became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Klune followed it with Under the Whispering Door (2021), In the Lives of Puppets (2023, winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction), and Somewhere Beyond the Sea (2024, winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy). He is recognized as one of the most significant voices in contemporary cozy and LGBTQ+ fantasy fiction.