Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Reed Stirling lives in Cowichan Bay, BC, and writes when not painting landscapes, or travelling, or taking coffee at The Drumroaster, a local café where physics and metaphysics clash daily.
Shades Of Persephone, published in 2019, is a literary mystery set in Greece.
Lighting The Lamp, a fictional memoir, was published in March 2020.
His shorter work has appeared over the years in a variety of publications including Hackwriters Magazine, Dis(s)ent, The Danforth Review, Fickle Muses, The Fieldstone Review, Humanist Perspectives, and StepAway Magazine.
Literary mystery is Reed’s primary interest, with romantic entanglement an integral part of the action. Greek mythology and allusion to all arts underpin plot development. Irony is pervasive.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The latest book published is Lighting the Lamp, March 2020. The events of 9/11 in New York City and other events like it elsewhere in the world initiated this novel. Marcel Proust was also a source of inspiration.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Words inspire me. I write the way I do because of a great love for language.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I read widely, and have done so for decades, the classics included. At present, works by Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, and John le Carré await. The muse visits me most often when I read the novels of John Banville.
My reading has definitely influenced my writing. Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandrian Quartet provided the impetus for Shades Of Persephone. John Fowles’ The Magus gave me the Greek setting. Joyce’s Portrait inspired more than one scene in Lighting The Lamp, as did the philosophical musing of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Marcel Proust plays a part here as well, as do Richard Dawkins, Emily Dickinson, and Albert Camus. The poems of Émile Nelligan are working thematically into Square Saint-Louis.
What are you working on now?
I am working on a first draft of a work tentatively titled Square Saint-Louis, where the troubles in a contemporary family mirror those of the tragic poet Émile Nelligan.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Promoting my books is new to me. It’s like dealing with a novel virus. A website like Awesome Gang offers me the opportunity to publicize my work. Recently I discovered Amazon Author Central; it allows for recognition not only here but also abroad.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Be disciplined. Write every day. Observe. Read other great novelists and short story writers.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Write about what you know and what you don’t know. Expand your fields of inquiry.
What are you reading now?
Among contemporary writers, I’m reading John Banville, Ian McEwan, and Richard Dawkins. Just completed Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending
What’s next for you as a writer?
Revision, revision, revision.
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?
The complete works of William Shakespeare. The Alexandrian Quartet.
Author Websites and Profiles
Reed Stirling Website
Reed Stirling Amazon Profile