AUTHOR

R. C. Martinez

I was born in Cuba and now live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

My fascination with storytelling began in childhood when I first discovered The Hobbit. Tolkien opened a door to worlds far beyond my own and awakened an imagination that would remain with me for years. But growing up in Cuba during times of scarcity, political tension, and uncertainty left little room for fantasy. Survival often came first, and writing slowly faded into the background.

During my mandatory military service, I found my way back to books. The long hours gave me time to read, write, and reflect on existence, mortality, human nature, and the strange darkness that seems to linger beneath ordinary life. Those questions would eventually become inseparable from the stories I wanted to tell.

When I left Cuba in 2012 and began a new life in Canada, writing returned as a refuge. The long winters, frozen landscapes, isolation, and darkness of Saskatchewan created an atmosphere strangely familiar to my imagination. Stories began to emerge from memories of childhood, fragments of experience, fears, dreams, and recurring nightmares.

Much of my fiction is born from that uneasy space between reality and imagination. I am fascinated by the ways ordinary people confront impossible circumstances, by the thin boundary between good and evil, and by the darker aspects of human nature. Writing became not only a creative pursuit, but also a way of confronting those ideas—giving shape to things that might otherwise remain buried.

I self-published my first official novel, Hillbrand, which later became the first entry in the Scriptoria of the Pale trilogy, a dark fantasy series blending survival, isolation, and horror.

I earned my bachelor’s degree in Cuba and later became a Registered Massage Therapist after moving to Canada. Outside of writing, I have always been drawn to role-playing games, dark fantasy, and horror—particularly worlds such as Diablo and Dark Souls. Their mythology, atmosphere, visual storytelling, and intricate lore have inevitably influenced the way I approach worldbuilding and the creation of my own fictional universes.

Today, I continue to live and write in Saskatoon, where the cold nights remain fertile ground for the imagination.
And the nightmares, fortunately, have never stopped.