About the Author

Taun Eric Willis is an author, musician, and computer scientist, celebrated for merging storytelling with sound. His debut novel, How to Build a Time Machine, garnered critical acclaim for its provocative premise. Willis sits at the nexus of literature, music, and generative AI, authoring gripping narratives and composing music inspired by his literary works.

Willis was born in Arizona and spent his early years learning to appreciate the conflicting beauty that is the American Sonoran Desert. As a boy, he chased “water dog” salamanders in the Salt River basin, camped with friends in the Tonto National Forest, and gazed at Halley’s comet from a remote desert trail beneath a sky crowded with stars.

He took an early interest in computers. At the age of 10 he was caught hacking into the mainframe of an internationally-known phone manufacturer in order to utilize their code compiler. He learned from his mistake… that is to say… he learned how he had been discovered, and was not caught again. On the first day of his high school computer class, Willis informed his teacher that he had already finished the textbook. He tested out of the class that afternoon and, with his instructor and 4 senior students, chartered the school’s first advanced computer programming class.

Willis lived in Japan for years. He bicycled mountain trails in Yamaguchi, walked the Tonomi beach, visited the Kamakura Daibutsu, and cooked rice crackers inside a cave in the mountains above the Tenmangū temple with a group of Shinto priests. He was also treated to a private tour of the Mazda automobile plant in Hōfu while masquerading as an American auto executive. Willis speaks Japanese and maintains a love for the Japanese people and culture to this day.

For more than 30 years, Willis developed software systems for some of the world’s most notable companies and government entities. He is a world-renowned cryptographer, patented authentication processes, and was interviewed by a United States congressional committee on the topic of cyber security. Willis now teaches computer science and business management to students in Arizona.

From an early age, he was influenced by the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, James Clavell, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Lloyd Alexander, Anne McCaffrey, and Ray Bradbury. In 2018, Willis published his first science-fiction novel, “How to Build a Time Machine”. The book has been described as an “interesting blend of Arthur C. Clarke and Tom Clancy”. He continued the book’s premise with a companion novel published in 2019 entitled, “John J. Clifton, Temporal Specialist”. In 2021, he released his third book, entitled “Elle, Temporal Enforcement Officer”. He is presently working on his fourth book, tentatively scheduled for release in early 2025.

Willis composes music inspired by his literary works, creating concept albums that enhance the emotional depth of his stories. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, he continues to explore the intersections of literature, music, and technology, with his latest project featuring an upcoming novel paired with an accompanying album.