Massimo Marino is a scientist and has been writing since he was young.

http://judygoodwin.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/author-interview-massimo-marino/

I wrote since I’ve been able to hold a pencil in my toddler’s hands. I created stories in my mind, and I wanted to remember them and read them later. My father and older brother received sci-fi magazines and at first I wasn’t allowed to read because I was too young, but I liked the cover pictures, so I invented stories based on those images.The first story I wrote is a bit lost in the fog of old memories but it had to do with a kid who transformed into a dolphin when looking at the full moon seen from a crack on the vault of a seaside cavern.

I like the immediacy of the short stories, where a spark of inspiration sees instant gratification. Anything can trigger a short story, a bit like the Madeleine of Proust. A novel is an adventure, it is a quest in uncharted territories, and the excitement of the unknown is thrilling. I know roughly where I want to go, but during the first draft the story becomes alive, the characters deepens and start acting independently. This is where the fun starts, I become the first reader of the story and twists and surprises are what I look for when writing.

I grew up in a family where religion had a big role on everyday activities. My school was also a religious institution, managed by the Jesuits, and it lasted till high school diploma. At school, I attended mass 3 or 4 times a week, and my education and formation had been influenced by those years. Now it’s different, and I tend toward agnosticism, but I believe I can’t mask the past.

The latest work is the sequel to “Daimones”, and volume 2 of “The Daimones Trilogy”. The novel takes place seven years after the event described in “Daimones”, and the reborn human society has to face again conflicts and hidden agendas that endanger the human race again, bringing the planet on the brink of self-destruction once more. Needless to say, the utopian promises in “Daimones”, show their dystopian aspect in “Once Humans”.

Everything and Nothing. I take mental note of details, situations, parts of conversations, news, or mental visions of what could be if… The more I let the subconscious take the lead, and the less I think about an inspiration, the more ideas seem to queue in the frontal cortex.

Book number 3 of the trilogy. What is going to happen after the events in “Once Humans”. There’s a lot already simmering and taking shape that will affect hundred of years for the Selected and the new transgenic human race.

I grew up reading sci-fi, so all the big names mostly, from Isaac Asimov to Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, to name just a few and then other genres too, Tolkien, Stephen King, Tom Clancy and others. Italian authors, too, like Svevo, Calvino, Sciascia, and also Greek mythology authors, the ones I used to hate at school and that are instead fantastic writers and authors. We live with myths daily, even if we do not realize it. I’d say the favorite writer is the one I happen to read at every moment: each book is a lesson and an opportunity to grow for a writer.

To be persistent and fulfill your dreams. I still have to fulfill mine…so never despair. Read and write a lot; it is the best way to learn how to write.