Richard A. Knaak

Early life and education Richard Allen Knaak was born May 28, 1961, in Chicago, Illinois, to James Richard Knaak and Anna Maria (Trappen) Knaak. and subsequently rhetoric, and earned a bachelor's degree in 1984. He also wrote the ten-volume Dragonrealm series, and the first Dragonrealm story, "Firedrake," helped him get his first Dragonlance project. He has also written several stand-alone volumes, including the contemporary fantasies Frostwing, King of the Grey, and Dutchman, plus the heroic adventure The Janus Mask. He has also worked on novels based in the worlds of the computer games Warcraft and Diablo.

Knaak lists Roger Zelazny, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Edgar Allan Poe as major influences, and has even listed a few of his favorite fellow authors, those being Robert E. Howard, Glen Cook, L. Sprague de Camp, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Harry Turtledove, Jennifer Roberson, Laurell K. Hamilton, Harry Harrison, and Robert Sawyer.