An Introduction

Since this is a new beginning for my website, it seems like a good time to introduce myself. So hi there! My name is Erik Larson, but as a writer I’m going by the name W.E. Larson because there is already a pretty well established author out there with my name. The W.E. stands for William Erik which is my actual name, but I’ve always been called by my middle name.

Kansas City

I live in the United States just a little south of Kansas City right smack in the middle of the country. I’m in my 40s and my family includes my wife and my two teenage kids–a daughter and son. We also have three dogs: a Collie/Akita mix named Thor, a beagle named Fenris, and a we’re-not-really-sure-what dog named Gunnar. The dogs all came from Wayside Waifs, which is a great animal shelter in south Kansas City.

I grew up not too far away in Topeka, Kansas. I was a pretty nerdy kid, doing the kinds of stuff that nerdy kids did. I did well in school, I made starships with cardboard for my Star Wars action figures, I played D&D, I was into computers, and I read science fiction and fantasy books. Yeah, pretty nerdy–I was even in the Math Club in high school (hey, Math Club was actually pretty fun). I had some of the typical problems of being nerdy with not being very popular and not doing all that great in the dating department (mostly because I insisted on asking out girls who weren’t interested in me instead of ones who were–typical teenage boy stupidness), but I didn’t get picked on and I had good friends and plenty of good times.

It was during those times that I developed an interest in story-telling. I didn’t do any writing to speak of aside from what I had to do for school, but I really enjoyed coming up with stories for running D&D games. Running a fun D&D game really requires some story telling and I quite enjoyed that aspect. After going through college, getting married, and starting a career, that story-telling seed took root and I decided to try my hand at writing. It was pretty start and stop for many years as things like kids and work took up my time, but I finally got things in gear and wrote a novel. I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote some more and had to learn a lot. That novel still isn’t done, but I took what I learned and wrote others. Turns out I really like writing and like the nerd I am, I like to stick with science fiction and the fantastical.

Iris Smart Home

Nowadays, I work as a principal software engineer for Lowe’s. Yep, the Lowe’s with the big home improvement stores. I work on their smart-home service that lets people control stuff in their house with a phone or tablet. The software I work on lets you control light switches, electric plugs, motion sensors, door and window sensors, alarms, keypads, vents, blinds, irrigation systems, and a bunch of other things around the house. It’s a lot different than writing software for my old Atari 400 back in the day, but it’s still very interesting to solve the puzzles that software throws at me.

Just for fun, here are some pictures of our dogs.

Thor Fenris Gunnar

Header Image – “Stipula fountain pen” by Power_of_Words_by_Antonio_Litterio.jpg: Antonio Litterioderivative work: InverseHypercube – Power_of_Words_by_Antonio_Litterio.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

Kansas City Image – Brian Hillegas https://www.flickr.com/photos/seatbel... under creative commons 2.0 generic.

 

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