Interview With Author Jon Sparks
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an award-winning writer & photographer, now focusing on writing fiction, without abandoning photography or the outdoors. Between writing and photography I’ve had my name on over fifty books, but it’s been a long road to publishing my first novel.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write stories. I have a misty recollection of one about a boy called Ajax who lived on a space station, written while I was at primary school. As an undergraduate I submitted something to Gollancz, back in the days when it was home to much of the best SF around (and when it was a genuine family firm, not an imprint of a corporate giant). I think I know which story it was, but I can’t be sure. It wasn’t good enough, anyway.
I never stopped writing fiction, but other things took up most of my time. For over 30 years I’ve specialised in landscape, travel and outdoor pursuits, especially walking, climbing and all varieties of cycling. I’m UK-based, but have travelled and photographed in more than 30 countries and have written travel guides to Finland and to the Baltic region. I have also written guidebooks for walkers, climbers and cyclists.
A few years ago some health issues gave me the feeling ‘it’s now or never’ and I resolved to refocus on fiction. Three Kinds of North is the first result to see the light of day.
I live in Garstang, Lancashire, with my partner Bernie and several bikes.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
‘Three Kinds of North’ is the first book of The Shattered Moon series. There are at least three more to follow, with Book Two, ‘The Sundering Wall’, due out in August 2023.
It’s hard to say exactly what inspired it; many things, I guess, including my outdoor experience. Creating a future world may seem a long way from writing about biking in the Lake District or walking in the Forest of Bowland, but it feeds in to the story in various ways, some more obvious than others. Anyone who knows about map-reading and navigation, for instance, will grasp where ‘Three Kinds of North’ comes from.
These influences will be seen even more strongly as the story takes a new turn in Book 2.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t think any of my fiction-writing habits are particularly unusual. Some of the things of done in the outdoors definitely are, from gasping notes into a Dictaphone (later an iPhone) as I slog up a steep hill, to taking quick snaps of every twist and turn of a trail to be sure of getting the directions right.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
One author, and one book, stand out for me: Ursula K Le Guin and The Left Hand of Darkness. All her SFF is worth reading and, for me, re-reading time and again, but everyone has their favourites and I’m no exception.
It’s a great book, of course, but I also came across it at just the right time, some years after its first publication in 1969. It was groundbreaking SF in its own right, but it also marked a transition in me and my reading, and I think its consideration of gender has influenced me ever since
The Left Hand of Darkness also nailed, once and for all, the myth that SF doesn’t do character; it focused on sociological rather than technological themes; and it offered some wonderful descriptions of landscape and outdoor experience, guaranteed to resonate with me.
I was delighted recently, watching an interview with Becky Chambers, whose work I also love, to see her cite the same book as her primary influence.
What are you working on now?
Primarily I am working on final edits to Book Two, ‘The Sundering Wall’, but I keep getting drawn in to a cluster of short stories that have seized my imagination. By the time we get to Book Four the story has advanced more than fifteen years and life for my main protagonist, Jerya, has changed out of all recognition. In these stories I’m imaging how life could have played out very differently for her if things had just gone slightly differently at certain key moments. The provisional title for these stories is ‘Three Kinds of Now’. I have a few other shorts in the works too, including one you can read for free on my website, and at some point I plan to bring these together in ebook and paperback.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still learning this aspect of the business. Maybe Awesome Gang will be the best!
I’ll keep exploring other avenues too, including Facebook and Mastodon (I’ve joined the exodus from Twitter).
Do you have any advice for new authors?
It’s all been said before, but read widely and write a lot. With everything you write, when it feels finished, put it aside and work on something else until you can come back to it with a fresh eye, then try as hard as you can to see it as if someone else had written it and you don’t really know what to expect.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“It’s hard to imagine an author who is not a reader first.”
― Terry Pratchett
What are you reading now?
I’m halfway through Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, which is a glorious romp through the music scene of the late 60’s (UK, with America on the horizon). The fictional band who give the book its title have encounters with lots of real people; Bowie, Bolan, Brian Jones, Little Richard, and many more. This adds an extra dimension and raises all sorts of questions about the relationship between fiction and reality.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Tidyng up Books 2, 3 and 4 of the series and then maybe rounding off that short story collection. There are ideas floating around that could turn into Books 5 and 6 too.
Then again I also have a couple of other things in the hard drive, including a Holmes and Watson in the 23rd century story.
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?
As you would guess from above, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin. I’d wish I could take most of the rest of hers too!
Then it gets harder. I have a list of twelve fiction and twelve non-fiction on my website and from that I’m picking… with difficulty…
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Clear Waters Rising by Nicholas Crane
Author Websites and Profiles
Jon Sparks’s Social Media Links