Janci Patterson

Janci Patterson is an American young-adult author based in Orem, Utah, who has published around forty books across contemporary and science-fiction YA, romantic comedy, and epic fantasy, working as a hybrid author who moves between traditional and independent publishing. She's best known for her ongoing collaborations with Brandon Sanderson: she co-wrote Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, the sixth entry in Sanderson's Alcatraz series told from a different character's point of view, and the three Skyward Flight novellas — Sunreach, ReDawn, and Evershore — later collected as Skyward Flight: The Collection (2022), companion stories to Sanderson's main Skyward science-fiction saga. The pair continue to work together: their new Riftwake trilogy, set after the events of Skyward, launches with Blightfall in September 2026. Readers who enjoy Sanderson's Cytoverse should treat the Skyward novellas or Blightfall as a natural next step, though both work best after at least the first Skyward novel for context. Outside her collaborative work, Patterson writes her own YA novels, beginning with Chasing the Skip (2012, later reissued as Skipped), and is reported to write under the joint pseudonym Cara Witter with fellow authors Megan Walker and Lauren Janes. She continues to publish new work most years.