When did you first start writing?
I started reading when I was two or three in what’s called “Spontaneous Reading.” When I was able to talk, I told stories. When I was able to write, I wrote stories. My life growing up was a series of near-death misses. In the face of the horror of my mother and sisters schizophrenia, I told myself stories to bolster my courage and give me hope. I told myself stories about good, hard-working people who made it through reckless and dangerous times. These are the best stories, in my opinion. I’ve had a lot of practice developing this kind of story so this is the type of story I tell well.
What motivated you to become an indie author?
It has always seemed to me that, at one time or another, every writer is screwed by their publisher. It doesn’t seem to matter how many books a writer has sold or the number of prestigious awards the writer has received, they are eventually screwed by their publisher. I decided to skip the “screwed by my publisher” phase and move on to starting my own publishing company. I have owned other companies so it wasn’t such an enormous stretch.
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