Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve lived a strange life with no sign of that changing any time soon. I taught myself to read at the age of three. One day while watching my mother read to me the strange black lines on the page suddenly snapped into focus and became words I could understand. It happened all at once and utterly shocked my mother when she discovered me reading to my stuffed animals later that day. She tested me with a book I’d never seen before and turns out I actually did teach myself to read. I was writing stories and poetry by the age of 7 and reading at a college level by age 13.
Then life took a much darker turn and I discovered more of the world than one should at that age but I’ll save the gory details for my memoir.
I like writing fiction because I can be utterly truthful.
I like writing science fiction because I’m fascinated with our potential as a species to create amazing almost impossible things and the license to wrestle with the larger sociological implications of our actions.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Faery Tales of the Future – my latest book, came about from my own fascination with traditional fairy tales combined with an abiding love of science fiction. Not the Disney kind of fairy tale, the darker Brothers Grimm type that carried a warning or a lesson or a contemplation of human nature and the supernatural. So many of our stories come from deeper darker roots. It got me wondering what stories would humanity take with us as we head for the stars. Would any knowledge of the home planet survive hundreds maybe thousands of years? What would those stories reflect about the people who dreamed so audaciously to inspire a small war-like species to reach for new worlds?
So I dedicated a series of short stories to exploring the subject. At the end of one glorious summer of writing I had about 16 – 20 stories.
I picked the ten best of the bunch and Faery Tales of the Future was born.
Lots of editing and revision followed resulting in the collection now available for your wonderful readers to enjoy.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Many of my ideas come from dreams. I studied conscious dreaming while attending the Academy and have practiced it for many years. Often I’ll start a story in my sleep. The words will come along with some visuals. When I wake I have to begin writing it or the dream will continue to haunt me all day. I’ve used this practice to solve plot issues and discover new aspects of my story as well. The subconscious mind is fertile ground for new ideas. At times I won’t really remember the dream but once I sit down to write I discover that the “problem” I was having with some subject or chapter has resolved itself with the dreaming. Even providing new areas to develop.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
So many, too many to count here. My early influences were the classics, English Lit masters like Dickens, Shakespeare and Tolkien. Later the American science fiction authors duked it out with Mark Twain, Longfellow and EE Cummings for space on my overflowing bookshelf. Eclectic is still how my tastes run. Although I love science fiction and write in that genre I read widely in non-fiction, philosophy, political, hard science, biology, astronomy and physics journals – you know, just for fun…
What are you working on now?
My next book is titled Destiny Wars – it’s a mind bending, time warping science fiction thriller exploring the connection between memory and identity while the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
The next book after that looks to be an epic fantasy set in a wholly original world not yet touched by humans.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Still figuring that part out. The ideas for prose and essays spill out of my brain but SEO, social media engagement and platform building are all word-salad to me.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Perhaps it’s been said before but keep writing! Let your first draft and even your fifth be dreck if it must. Judgement too early in the process is the dream killer. Let it be messy, unfocused and poorly punctuated. All those things can and will be fixed but only if you finish that first draft!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The best advice I ever heard for writers and really any artist is to write down every idea in a notebook or journal because you never know when that kernel of an idea will spring forth into Divine inspiration.
What are you reading now?
Ursula K. LeGuin’s Catwings – I never read it! (i’m *not* crying, you’re crying… 😉
What’s next for you as a writer?
Figuring out the marketing part with the goal of making writing my full time occupation complete with a sustainable income – so nothing *too* big…
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?
4 books?!? That’s like telling a chocoholic they can only eat saltine crackers for the rest of their life!
I’d have to cheat and bring a Kindle (with a solar charger) loaded with thousands of books, 2 blank notebooks for journaling and a classic like the Iliad because if I’m stranded on a desert island then it’s obviously the beginning of an epic quest.
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