Zachary E. Weaver

## Life as an Author

Zachary started his writing career as young as six years old while writing stapled-together notebook stories about Spyro the Dragon and hand-drawing their front covers. Not long after, one of his poems was selected for print in a collection at eight years old and his first attempt at a novel was finished at eleven years old. With writing being a core part of his life through elementary school, the concept of Sorrow began in middle school during the height of vampire fiction. Wanting to do something completely different from the existing and popular works of that time, Sorrow was started, which evolved until his sophomore year of college when it was released in April of 2017 as part of “The Sorrows Trilogy,” the predecessor to the current series, The Legacy of Sorrow.

After the release of Affliction in 2021, work on Desolation began and encountered problems during production regarding length and the overall scale of the series. The decision was made in 2022 to re-launch the books as a four-part series entitled The Legacy of Sorrow, with the first book (Sorrow) undergoing extensive rewrites to enhance its quality and treating the rest of the series to a rebranding and a new design. The rebranding expanded, growing to include merchandise, custom and commissioned artwork, an Official Fandom Wiki (community partnership), and more that brought the Sorrowverse closer to reality.

## Professional Career and Education

While Zachary is currently a retired Army Staff Sergeant and a graduate student, his career began along a unique and unexpected route. After his high school graduation in 2014 and 16 weeks of military training through the U.S. Army to become a Combat Engineer,, Zachary started classes in the spring of 2015 at The Pennsylvania State University for their Nuclear Engineering program with the intent of commissioning as a military officer. As a certified draftsman through his high school, inspiration for engineering had continued until exploring other career options and becoming heavily invested in the medical field. During his employment as a senior phlebotomist at a plasma donation facility, he changed his major to Biobehavioral Health with the intent of pursuing medical school after his undergraduate studies.

From 2016 to 2018, Zachary continued school at Penn State in spite of growing financial stress and was selected for a position on the PAARNG’s Homeland Response Force as a Search and Extraction Team Leader. The remainder of his free time was spent working per diem as a physical and occupational therapy technician to grow his experience in the medical field. Seeking all available options, Zachary sought a position through his military career at the DOD Biomedical Technology program in San Antonio, TX after being promoted to Sergeant. After serious consideration and a lengthy process to secure the role, Zachary attended the active-duty program and graduated with distinguished honors in spite of a serious head injury that occurred during a training accident.

Shortly after, he returned home to Pennsylvania, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with his Bachelors degree through Purdue University and started his Master of Public Health (MPH) in the fall of 2021. During this time, he remained on active duty with the Joint Force Headquarters of the Army National Guard in Pennsylvania. As of 2022, Zachary finished out his days in the Army as a squad leader and mentor, and continuing graduate school online while writing full-time. He is the first in his immediate family to have a college education and is proudest (second to his writing) of becoming a Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) in the Army.

In January of 2023, Zachary was medically retired and honorably discharged from the military as Staff Sergeant. He was granted a Master of Public Health degree in August 2023 and pursues a Master of Healthcare Administration with an anticipated graduation in September of 2024. While he currently teaches students in the fields of Public Health and Medical Law as Adjunct Faculty in the Purdue University school system, he plans to pursue his doctorate (DrPH) through Johns Hopkins University or Walden University in the Fall of 2025 or 2026.

## Personal Life

Zachary enjoys a great many hobbies, to include snowboarding (prior to his injuries), video games, and playing guitar and piano. Music has always been revered as an influence on his writing, and he has repeatedly credited Amy Lee of Evanescence as his greatest personal inspiration. As he balances a 4.0 GPA in graduate school with his medical care and life at home, he enjoys spending time with his three cats: Onyx, Stormy, and Momo. While he wants to adopt a Siberian Husky or German Shepard someday, Momo takes on the temporary role of a puppy and follows Zachary everywhere he goes. He owns a home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and spends most of his time there.

In 2018, Zachary suffered a blow to the head, which resulted in chronic and intense pain over the following year, as he was misdiagnosed by medical providers during his time in Texas. After his return to Pennsylvania, he was finally diagnosed with occipital neuralgia, a type of nerve damage in the skull that is often difficult to manage. Alongside the battle against anxiety, his chronic pain prevents him from enjoying many of the activities he used to, but claims his writing as a saving grace during the process to overcome his injuries.

Zachary has been with his wife Samantha since high school (2012), being engaged in 2016 after four years together and married in secret September 13, 2018 so she could travel with him along his military career. As of 2022, they are celebrating ten years as a couple and four years of marriage. Samantha currently works as a veterinary technician and is pursuing an Associates in her field while working full-time.

He also has two younger brothers, Nathan and Kaelan, and happily entertains losses in nearly every video game they play together; Nathan is a student of Business Management at Purdue University Global and Kaelan is on a pre-Physician Assistant track at Penn State University under full academic scholarship. His father Michael has been the largest contributor toward his writing and academic career through consistent support and frequent passive-aggressive remarks about not yet being a doctor. His mother Sheila owns a full-time fabric business and treats him to daily - sometimes hourly - text messages. His grandmother Beverly was his best friend growing up, and that dynamic hasn't changed since his formative years. The two still enjoy discussing the 'idiots of the world' and going to lunch as often as possible.