Known as The Crowgrrl, Athena Schaffer is a journalist, artist, and author. She began her career in radio news many years ago (including being co-originator and writing script for Associated Press’ weekly Rock Notes segment), segueing into print journalism from there. She has been either a stringer, freelancer, or columnist for Performance Magazine, Pet Age, Fancy Publications, Trucks Magazine (with a column called “Rig Dogs”), Green Egg Magazine, Peacock's Perch magazine, and the short-lived American Ferret Magazine. She has also written pet-care brochures for Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council. She is currently music writer for Gothic Beauty magazine, a stringer for Amusement Business Magazine (a sister-publication to Billboard), and the Patuxent Publishing group of community newspapers in Maryland. She freelances on top of that.

Athena has several books in progress at the present time, including one of worldwide legends of crows and ravens.

As far as art, she mainly sells prints of her paintings. However, she has provided artwork for Anne Leighton's book, "Using Your Art To Comfort People". She has designed corporate logos for others as well.

She has served as publicist for musicians such as keyboardist Tommy Zvoncheck (formerly of Blue Oyster Cult), Quiet Riot, and singer Lisa Coppola, as well as for organizations such as Farm Animal Reform Movement and International Ferret Association. (Schaffer also is a licensed show judge on the ferret circuit, and has bred and shown ferrets of her own.) She is very active in trying to make the world a better place, currently serving on her community board of directors as well as volunteering with her local SPCA and Partnership for Animal Welfare (PAW); and has volunteered in the past for Greenpeace, PETA, and Defenders of Wildlife. She also does animal rescue work whenever needed.

She is hereditary Witch, and was handed down the Sherwood Coven through her family. (She is currently High Priestess of the Sherwood Coven). She originated the “Ferret Familiars” sub-group with the International Ferret Association, and put out the group’s newsletter. She has also worked with the W.A.D.L. (Witches’ Anti-Discrimination Lobby) when Dr. Leo Louis Martello was the head of the organization, and even shortly thereafter serving as co-tri-state regional director (along with her husband) for Maryland, DC, and Virginia.

A native of Washington, DC, she grew up in the city’s suburbs, mainly Maryland, which still has a strong remembrance of one of the state’s most illustrious residents, Edgar Allan Poe. She knew “The Raven” by heart back in elementary school, and has been a Poe fan most of her life.

She currently lives in Maryland with her husband of 13 years, son, ferret, dogs, and 3 aquaria. She’s a Corvidophile (And jokes that if her husband wasn’t allergic to bird dander, she’d share her home with pied crows in a heartbeat). She enjoys horseback riding, painting, collecting merchandise from “The Crow”, and studying legends from around the world.

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