Posts

Showing posts from September, 2009

[Interview] Jason Blacker

Image
South African author, Jason Blacker was born in Cape Town but grew up in Johannesburg. He moved to Vancouver, Canada when he was 18 years old and currently lives in Calgary. He spent some time at art college before getting a degree in English Literature. He has worked, among other things, as a police officer, a privacy analyst, a school bus driver and a Starbucks Store Manager. His first novel, Black Dog Bleeding (Lulu, 2008) explores South Africa's apartheid era and the personal cost paid by individuals who found the policy abhorrent and resisted it. In this interview, Jason Blacker talks about his writing: When did you start writing? I started writing as soon as I could pick up a crayon. In the early days, kindergarten, I started off drawing and exploring colours before learning to write letters and and words. I think, for me, writing was a natural evolution from drawing. I love drawing and took a couple of years at art college. But to write words that are transformed into ima

[Interview] Jennifer Armstrong

Image
Zimbabwean author, Jennifer Armstrong has worked as a martial arts journalist. Her memoir, Minus the Morning (Lulu, 2009) explores what it was like to grow up in a white, Christian, Rhodesian family. She is also the author of three e-books: Dambudzo Marecher a (Lulu, 2009), which explores the link between Zimbabwean writer, Dambudzo Marechera, and shamanism; father, son, holy ghost (Lulu, 2009), which has been described as "a story of Oedipal knowledge and realisation, in Africa"; and, Skydive on Zimbabwe (Lulu, 2009), a poem in freeform verse. All three e-books are available to download free from Lulu . Currently, Jennifer Armstrong lives in Perth, Australia. In this interview, she talks about her writing: When did you start writing? The medium I had the most natural affinity for, at school, was art. When I begun to grow up, I had no idea what I wanted to be, so I gravitated towards the visual arts, only to find that I got much more of a thrill when explaining the conc

[Interview] J. R. Reardon

Image
Novelist J. R. Reardon is a Boston native; Suffolk University Law School alum, and former partner of Saltzman & McNaught LLP. She has practiced law in many areas including civil and criminal litigation. She is active in several legal associations in both Massachusetts and the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice in the federal and state courts of Massachusetts, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, she has also taught insurance law and is published in the Suffolk University Law Review . Her first novel, Confidential Communications (Xlibris, 2008) has been described as "...a compelling read that will keep you turning page after page, hoping that justice will prevail." In this interview, J. R. Reardon talks about her writing: When did you start writing? And, how did you decide you wanted to get published? My mother encouraged my siblings and I to read early on, and we took regular trips to the library as children.

[Interview: Part 5 of 5] John Miller, author of '2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah'

Speculative fiction author John Miller has talked about how he started writing and the people and experiences that have influenced him. He also discussed some of his concerns as a writer and shed some light on the circumstances surrounding the publication of his novella, 2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah (Sonar4 Publications, 2009). In the final part of this interview, John Miller talks about his achievements as a writer: Which were the most difficult aspects of the work that you put into 2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah ? The most difficult aspect of this book was tying in the main bad guy (the evil Mayan priest) with the worldwide calamities. Why did he need Cal’s psychic employees? For what ends did he need them? And what type of spirit did he employ in his evil and priestly powers? For me the answers came after a couple days of writer’s block. It wasn’t a creativity problem; it was a problem with the plot—making it as realistic and viable as possible for the readers as well as myself. If I didn’t b

[Interview: Part 4 of 5] John Miller, author of '2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah'

Author John Miller has talked about how he started writing . He has also identified some of the people and experiences that have influenced his writing and commented on his concerns as a writer . In this part of the interview, John Miller talks about his novella, 2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah (Sonar4 Publications, 2009). How many books have you written so far? I have one E-Book that was released by Sonar4 Publications in April 2009. That is it. While I have written and finished novels, I have not allowed them to go public. The reason for this is because I have read novels by small press and the big boy publishers, and I find typos and/or problems that bother me as a reader. I have a responsibility to put forth the best possible work I can, and I will only put forth my very best work. 2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah is the best story I have written. And while I have other novellas and novels saved on my computer, I also have used the “ladder rung” theory to test my writing ability and what I’m read

[Interview: Part 3 of 5] John Miller, author of '2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah'

Speculative fiction author, John Miller spoke about how he started writing and identified some of the people and experiences that have influenced his writing. In this part of the interview, he talks about his concerns as a writer: What are your main concerns as a writer? My major concern is realism. In order for the speculative fiction that I write to be successful, I must do it in such a manner that the reader will suspend disbelief. While writing about epics that change the world, it becomes more difficult to be realistic because we’re talking about changing not just the character’s world… we’re talking about changing the reader’s world. But if I can write it in such a way that the reader suspends his belief and accepts my explanations of natural disasters, calamity or scenarios, then my story may influence the reader more than another writer’s story. Because my story is about the world the reader actually lives in; it affects the reader’s life. My short stories influence only ch

[Interview: Part 2 of 5] John Miller, author of '2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah'

In the first part of this interview, John Miller , author of 2012: Kin Bin Tin Nah (Sonar4 Publications, 2009), talked about some of the factors that made him start writing. In this, the second segment of the interview, he identifies the audience he writes for as well as some of the influences that have had an impact on his writing: Who is your target audience? I write for myself first and foremost, so I guess one could ask who I am. I’m a divorced father with three small children (as I’ve mentioned). And I’ve mentioned my different job experiences, but I think I’m a cross-section cut right out of America; the average individual living in America is a little bit of everything these days. We belong to multiple organizations, have various hobbies and pursuits, but we are knowledgeable about many different things. In today’s world, Americans may read a little horror and some literary as well as Time and Newsweek and People . As a member of a society well versed in various genres and