Ian Compass is an up-and-coming author currently working on a YA science fiction manuscript, Forgone, a novel about a seventeen-year-old girl who volunteers for a survival-based VR assessment in a with a group of ability-wielding teens while grappling with the question of why her greatest asset is the loss of her memory.
Biography
Ian Compass grew up in Utah County and showed an early interest in writing, his first story featuring a pet lizard in early grade school. His stories steadily improved. In high school, he completed a novel-length work of fan fiction and a memoir discussing his experiences in marching band. After graduating from UVU (AA) and BYU (BA) in English, Ian became convinced that despite having improved his craft in creative writing classes, he wasn’t ready to seriously attempt writing a novel. Instead, he became a professional copywriter in 2010, a career he followed for eight years before transitioning to software testing and programming. However, the itch never left him, and he finally returned to his dream of writing a novel.
Affiliations
Ian Compass is a member of the League of Utah Writers and served as the president of the Utah Valley Legends chapter in 2018. He was instrumental in forming the Nebo Novelists chapter.
Pen Name
Ian Compass is a pseudonym for Jeff Baker—a name so common, statistics suggest that over one thousand men in the United States bear it. In order to distinguish himself from other authors with this name (along with a nonfiction book he wrote), Jeff chose the pen name Ian Compass for his fiction.