Summer of Discovery: the kickoff
Discovery. Excitement. The wonder of amazing worlds.
This is why I read. This is why I write.
In my literary travels, I've met unicorns , dragons, amazons , vampires, vampire slayers, werewolves, shapeshifters, demons, faeries, and so many more. Many of them live in our world, some in other worlds. Some worlds are so complex that you need several wiki articles to explain them. Some, equally as complex, began as kid's books, but later morphed into more adult fare.
I live in the world of mundania: work, traffic, rent payments, politics, climate change, terrorists. Is it any wonder that I seek escape in books–both writing and reading? As a kid, I often found myself rushing through schoolwork to get to my library books*. I'd discovered Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels. Later on there was Dracula (in all his various permutations), Anne McCaffrey's Pern, Charles deLint's Ottowa, Tanya Huff's Toronto, Joss Whedon's Sunnydale, Chris Golden's Shadow Saga…all of which eventually led to my own Rio Seco, Texas and my take on urban fantasy.
Every single day I discover something new about the world of books, whether a new author, a new story, a new world created by an old friend. This is a never-ending feast and I'm glad to share my blog this late spring/summer with so many brilliant folks who helped create that feast.
Join me tomorrow, May 5, as we kick off our series with John Betancourt, owner/publisher of Wildside Press and the man who helped start my own writing career. In addition to his publisher hat, John is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and mystery novels as well as short stories.
