August 2020
Welcome. Mike. Can you tell us a little what your story, "The First Day of Winter," is about?
We've seen in the last few years a dramatic reduction in Arctic sea ice, and are looking ahead to a day when it's all gone. I found myself wondering what it would feel like to witness the opposite--the day when measures have paid off and the all-important ice makes a come-back. What a milestone for the rehabilitation of a damaged environment!
How did you come up with the idea?
The message is 'never give up!' And of course, that great things come at a price, and sometimes that price is painful to pay. What could be greater than restoring the balances of the environment? Yet it would be naive to imagine so grand a goal can be reached without wringing the last ounce of suffering from the human race the fates possibly can, and this is embodied in the deep personal cost of safeguarding the system.
What is your inspiration for writing as a whole?
I've been a storyteller since I wrote my first composition in junior school, and inspiration tends to be a very visceral thing, initially a process of images and a sense--not in words, but feelings--that something dramatic and meaningful needs to be said. The words flow from that feeling. I know that's not a very clear way to put it, but the process begins in a very abstract way.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
As I said above, I've been a writer most of my life in one way or another. My family immigrated to Australia from the UK in 1971 and I wrote my first complete story in a notebook somewhere around my eighth birthday. By the age of twelve I was hammering out a rather naive science fiction novel on a mechanical typewriter, and learned to write to a better standard in Star Wars fandom in the late 1970s. I was a journalist for sport and hobby magazines in the 80s and 90s, entered academia and ended up taking a Doctorate in archaeology, before trying my hand at the short story market, and...here we are.
Where can listeners find more of your work?
Here’s my blog, The View from the Keyboard
A couple of my early pro placements can be read online:
Any new work we should keep an eye out for?
I've been dabbling in mystery writing lately, I have a Sherlock Holmes short, with a dash of the occult, appearing in the not too distant future in Weird Tales. And Hybrid Fiction is presenting, hopefully in September 2020, one of my "Inspector Trevelyan Mysteries," the adventures of a retired Scotland Yard man in the early 1890s whose cases as a private investigator always seem to touch on the bizarre and paranormal.
And just for Juli's curiosity, what are you reading now?
I recently re-read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the unabridged 1976 restoration of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but tend to read a lot of non-fiction material as background information and sources of inspiration for future work.
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Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this story, you might be interested in reading the whole anthology, Gotta Wear Eclipse Glasses, with many more great stories. It's available on Amazon (print) and is free on Smashwords.
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