Steve Hillard is an American

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, attorney,

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, and

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television networks, but upon acce ...

Biography

In 1997, Hillard founded Council Tree Communications, a

private equity fund A private equity fund (abbreviated as PE fund) is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity (and to a lesser extent debt) securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity. ...

, that assisted the first significant Native American investment in a

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

and investments in

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

providers In 2011, Hillard's first book, ''Mirkwood: A Novel About JRR Tolkien'', was involved in an

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

controversy. The dispute was settled in May 2011. The

settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), downward movement of a structure's foundation *Settlement (finance), where securities are delivered against payment of money *Settlement (litigatio ...

terms included the

disclaimer A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship. In contrast to other terms for legally operative langua ...

, "This is a work of

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

which is neither endorsed nor connected with The JRR

Tolkien Estate The Tolkien Estate is the legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright for most of his works. The individual copyrights have for the most part been assigned by the estate (law), estate to s ...

or its publisher." The work of

Tolkien fan fiction Tolkien fan fiction is fantasy fiction, often published on the Internet, by Tolkien fans, in large quantities. It is based either directly on J. R. R. Tolkien's books on his fantasy world of Middle-earth, or on an adaptation of this world, especi ...

has, according to the scholar Una McCormack, garnered more than its share of attention, while large numbers of "excellent" works of fan fiction by women are overlooked.

List of works

* ''Mirkwood: A Novel About JRR Tolkien'' (2010-01-18) * ''KNOLL: The Last JFK Conspiracist'', Select Books, (2017) * ''Farway Canyon'' with Dennis Nowlan, Select Books, ISBN pending.

References

21st-century American novelists American fantasy writers American male novelists Living people 21st-century American male writers Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-fantasy-writer-stub