## SHORT BIO (50 words)
Elena Vasquez unearths forgotten worlds in her historical fantasy *Shadows of Forgotten Empires*, where a young archaeologist deciphers glyphs revealing a Mesoamerican empire's cataclysmic fall. Drawing from her Spanish roots and digs in Mexico, she blends myth with archaeology. Currently chasing ghosts in the Yucatán for her sequel.

(48 words)

## MEDIUM BIO (150 words)
Elena Vasquez captivates with *Shadows of Forgotten Empires*, a historical fantasy plunging readers into the collapse of a Mesoamerican empire through an archaeologist's glyph-cracking quest. A former history professor who traded lecture halls for excavation sites, Elena spent years unearthing Mayan artifacts in Mexico's jungles, fueling her obsession with lost civilizations. Her debut weaves rigorous research—sourced from cenote dives and codex studies—into pulse-racing narratives that question how empires vanish. Off the page, she's a single mom teaching her daughter to spot pottery shards on beach walks and a home-brewer of smoky mezcal cocktails. Based in Austin, Texas, Elena is drafting the sequel, *Echoes from the Cenote*, where underwater secrets threaten to drown the modern world.

(142 words)

## LONG BIO (300 words)
Elena Vasquez was born in a dusty Andalusian village where her grandmother spun tales of Moorish ghosts haunting olive groves, igniting a lifelong hunt for history's buried voices. As a child, she pored over dog-eared National Geographics, dreaming of pyramids. That spark led her to study archaeology at the University of Seville, then to Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula for graduate digs, where she sifted through jungle-choked ruins, brushing dirt from jade masks and deciphering faded stelae under flashlight beams.

After a decade as a professor, Elena left academia to write full-time, channeling her fieldwork into *Shadows of Forgotten Empires*. The novel tracks archaeologist Ixchel as she decodes glyphs foretelling her city's doom—floods, betrayal, and ritual sacrifice amid a crumbling Mesoamerican empire. Elena's details ring true: the humid slap of cenote water, the acrid burn of copal incense, drawn from her own treks into Chichén Itzá's shadows.

Her thematic obsessions—empires' fragility, women's erased roles in history—stem from influences like Octavia Butler's speculative histories and the Popol Vuh's mythic grit. *Shadows* marks her pivot from academic papers to fiction that grips like an Indiana Jones thriller with deeper stakes.

Today, Elena lives in Austin, Texas, with her rescue mutt, Pico, who digs up backyard "artifacts" (mostly bottle caps). She mentors young archaeologists via online workshops and experiments with fermented cacao drinks inspired by ancient recipes. Her next book, *Echoes from the Cenote*, dives into submerged Maya lore, promising drowned gods and present-day reckonings. Elena's work reminds us: civilizations don't just fall—they whisper warnings from the soil.

(298 words)

## FIRST-PERSON "ABOUT ME" (100 words)
I write historical fantasy because the past isn't dead—it's a jungle waiting to swallow secrets. In *Shadows of Forgotten Empires*, my archaeologist heroine cracks glyphs that unravel a Mesoamerican empire's watery doom, blending my Yucatán digs with pure imagination. By day, I'm chasing my kid's soccer games and brewing weird drinks; by night, I'm lost in ruins. Raised on Spanish ghost stories, I've traded trowels for keyboards but still crave that thrill of unearthing truth. Stick around—my sequel's bubbling up from the depths.

(92 words)

## SOCIAL HANDLE BIOS
- **Twitter/X (160 chars):** Unearthing empires one glyph at a time. *Shadows of Forgotten Empires*: archaeologist vs. ancient doom in Mesoamerica. History nerd, mezcal maker, jungle rat. #HistFant Sequel brewing. @ElenaVasquezWrites (117 chars)

- **Instagram (150 chars):**
Lost cities.  
Glyphs that bite.  
*Shadows of Forgotten Empires*—Mesoamerican empire crumbles in watery apocalypse. 🏛️💀🌊  
From Yucatán digs to Austin desk. Mom, archaeo-nerd, cacao brewer.  
Sequel alert! @elena_vasquez_books  
(148 chars)

- **LinkedIn (220 chars):** Archaeologist-turned-author Elena Vasquez writes historical fantasy grounded in Mesoamerican research. *Shadows of Forgotten Empires* explores an empire's fall via glyph-decoding quests, drawn from my Yucatán fieldwork. Former professor; now full-time novelist mentoring emerging historians. Austin-based. Seeking speaking gigs on ancient worlds. Connect! (238 chars—trimmed to fit)

## AUTHOR PHOTO CAPTION
Elena Vasquez amid Yucatán ruins, glyphs at her fingertips—author of *Shadows of Forgotten Empires*.

## MEDIA CONTACT BLOCK
Elena Vasquez  
elena@elenavasquezbooks.com  
(512) 555-0192  
www.elenavasquezbooks.com  
Twitter/X: @ElenaVasquezWrites | Instagram: @elena_vasquez_books | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elenavasquez