Born to a nonmusical branch of a musical family, Gwen Knighton says her father never picked up a musical instrument except to move it off the chair he was about to sit in. Luckily for both herself and the rest of the world, she didn't follow his example. Piano lessons, voice lessons, violin lessons, horn lessons, trips to conferences, choir tours abroad, summer music camps, All-State chorus experiences, a summer at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts, and competition wins sparked her lifelong interest in music, but not enough to make her pursue it as a career. After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy as a voice and creative writing major, she ended up as an English major who spent hobby time playing in early music consorts (viols, crumhorns, mandolins; you name it, she can pick it up and play Greensleeves on it).

After college, Gwen became a technical writer, and it was while she was living and working in Massachusetts that she began to research small harps and recultivate her lifelong dream of being a harper. A generous friend had her first harp made for her, a wirestrung harp made of ash and built by Atlanta, Georgia's Bob Cunningham. It arrived at her Cambridge, Massachusetts office on February 29, 1996. The only thing her friend ever asked was that she learn how to play the thing. And nobody disputes that.

In the past eleven years, Gwen has thrown herself into harp playing, harp technique, songwriting, and the hermetic secrets of fingernail growth and repair with passion and intensity. She's refocused her longtime fascination for bardic poetry and storytelling into harping and songwriting. She's spent time at both Scoil na gClairseach and Amherst Early Music and taken lessons from Bill Taylor, Siochan Armstrong, Kasha Breau, Alison Kinnaird, Ann Heymann, Harper Tasche, Sue Richards, Heather Yule and Robin Huw Bowen.

Gwen has performed at coffehouses, private parties, weddings, and family celebrations, folk clubs, renaissance festivals, competed at Celtic festivals and Highland Games, and was named the Scottish Harp Society of America's National Journeyman Champion for the year 2000, which earned her a trip to Scotland's Edinburgh Harp Festival. In Edinburgh, Gwen studied with Bill Taylor, Heather Yule, and Sheena Wellington.

With her band, Three Weird Sisters, Gwen made a splash in the world of science fiction fandom. The band earned guest spots at conventions spanning the US and packed the house at the 2005 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow Scotland. The band won a "Best Performer" Pegasus in 2002, and Gwen has received two "Best Songwriter" nominations.

Gwen has taught individual and group lessons in private settings and at festivals. In 2005, she relocated to the United Kingdom and now makes her home in London with her family. She also has a park for a front garden, and is twenty minutes away by bus or train from both an 8,000 year old forest and Central London. It's a great life.

What's next? Gwen says she has no clue, but she'll go wherever the harp takes her. Gwen Knighton is proof that you can come a long way in a short time, proof that you can be irreverent and casual and still display good wire technique, proof that a sense of humor combined with a large dose of stubbornness and focus can lead to living your dreams, and proof that yes, there is a happy-ever-after.