Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a resident of Greeley, Colorado, and a graduate of University of Northern Colorado, where I majored in music. I’m a freelance musician, part time welder, and part time kennel worker. I live with my wife Heather, and three dogs: Gizmo, Kaori, and Ellie Mae.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My first, and so far only, book is SHADOW LIFE. It’s Science Fiction Noir.
The state of the world in Shadowlife is my take on where our current society could arrive in the near future. There is no intention for it to be either dystopian or utopian. It has simply continued to move on, and bring both the good and the bad with it. There have been some upheavals. The federal government has been reduced to a kind of transit authority between city-states. The city-states are where the power lies, and each city is a power unto itself. They are expected to govern and provide for their populace with only the resources within their own border, or through trade with other city-states. It is not a perfect system. Corruption is still evident, and no city-state can provide for its population perfectly. All citizens are given tracking chips while still in the womb, a situation that has both positive and negative repercussions.
The primary thing that the world of Shadowlife retains is continued human error and imperfection. The world is intended to be a believable evolution of where humanity is today. Technology continues to develop, to both solve and create new issues, and people remain people, completely recognizable to us in this age, but dealing with developments and technologies that have yet to arrive in our time.
Obviously, no one could know where we will actually be in the near future, so any attempt to predict is merely a flight of fantasy on the creator’s part. Any technology presented is simply to further the story and nothing else. The world will move on.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write when I have the time. I tend to pay attention to the dialog, settings and character development.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I was inspired by game play, James Bond-esque characters, and Raymond Chandler stories.
What are you working on now?
A new and interesting novel, of course.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I leave that up to my friends at EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read and write. Everyday. Eventually a book will evolve.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Put your bum in the chair and write.
What are you reading now?
A lot of Noir combined with science fiction. My favorite book is Catch 22. I have read it more than a dozen times. I read it every year around December. The more I read that book the more I start to think it’s not really satire, or, if it is, it’s just very slightly over the line from normal. It’s such a deceptive book. I read it and laugh all the way through, but so little of what is happening is actually funny.
I love Catch 22 for a number of reasons. I love Yossarian. I love his cowardice. It’s hard to think of another book where I can root so strongly for a coward. I love how Joseph Heller spins everything into a contradiction, from the major themes to individual sentences. I love it because it keeps me humble. No matter how successful I might become as a writer, I can’t conceive of being able to craft a masterpiece like Catch 22.
I want to believe that Yossarian successfully escapes at the end. In my mind, this is what happens. It’s why I’ve never read the sequel.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m hoping this book will be well received. It may well determine if I finish writing the next one, ‘Stacked Deck’. The book I dream of writing is the one that finally hooks my daughter and makes her love reading as much as I do. I don’t really know what that is yet though.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
A Raymond Chandler book, a Dr. Suess book, and the Gaslight series of books edited by Charles Prepolec and J. R. Campbell.
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