Amy Sterling Casil

Who is Amy Sterling Casil?

Amy Sterling Casil is a Southern California science fiction writer. Her writing has often included Southern California themes. Her mother, Sterling Sturtevant was an Academy Award-winning art director for animated films who worked for Playhouse Pictures, UPA and Charles Schulz.

A four-year National Merit Scholar, she graduated from Scripps College in Claremont, CA in 1983 with bachelor's degrees in British/American Literature and Studio Art. She was the first female editor and publisher of the Claremont Colleges' newsmagazine. She twice received the Crombie Allen Award for fiction writing at the Claremont Colleges. She attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop at Michigan State University in 1984.

"Jonny Punkinhead," which appeared in the July 1996 New Writers issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, was her first published genre story.

Casil was the director of Family Service Association in Redlands, California from 1987 to 1997. In 1999, she received her MFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University, Orange, CA with full honors, under committee chair James P. Blaylock. From 1998 to 2005, she taught English and creative writing at several Southern California colleges, including Chapman University and Saddleback College. Since 2005, she has been Director of Development for the noted Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization, Beyond Shelter.