Shennan was born near Tyler, Texas, and within a couple of years, moved to the Upstate area of South Carolina where he was adopted by his Great Aunt and Uncle when I was just four years old. He found it hard to make a lot of new friends, but used that isolation to develop a love for writing stories and hiking in the nearby mountains, especially the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Eventually finding a way to incorporate the two together. In dong so, he also believes this aided in him being the hopeless romantic that he is today.