J.E.T. Johnson

This is my very last digression before trying the 'preview and publish' icon...

Oh wait...now I am going to make it the first question on my list; just because I can.
And also because it is an interesting inquiry.

I find the whole concept of 'actively' marketing oneself just to sell a story, dangerously invasive. Such marketing ploys seem to rely on vivi-motional (I just made that up to encompass emotional surgery/vivisection) procedures enacted UPON the author. That is, you, the reader, require that the author spew forth uninhibited outpourings of their emotional, intellectual and spiritual beliefs so that the curiosity of you, the public/reader, is sated.

Or do you?

Who is actually demanding the vivi-motions to begin with? Is it really you, the reader/s?
I know I have never read a word on the nature and/or background of any of my literary heroes. I have found that in real life, actually meeting a respected but hitherto anonymous entity, is usually very disappointing. What they say and what they actually believe are often diametrically opposed; or their ability to enact their higher ideals is somehow perverted by either discourtesy, ego, delusions of superiority, and/or all of the aforementioned.

Or is the curiosity a media-lithic (= media monolith) construct - as I suspect. After all, such monoliths need to be self-perpetuating. They have jobs to secure and profits to make and investors to over-indulge and audiences to deceive in order to capture their ongoing custom so that jobs are secured and profits made and investors indulged and even more customers deceived and their money captured and...

So what is it readers?
Is your alleged curiosity about the author manufactured by the media under its (profit producing) construct of 'fame' and its attendant 'responsibilities'?
If so, I have never been interested in achieving either 'fame' or 'infamy' - see below comments on secretive and solitary - so I have nothing to say for myself in terms of a 'profile'. I will say however, that my WRITING is a multi-directional bridge between dark and light. Some stories are lighthearted. Some are black. Some definitely do not under any circumstances reflect hidden or covert beliefs of the author...some do. Some are in-between. Some even I am not sure of.
And at this point, I don't yet know which of them I will offer for publication and consumption. (Just looking out for your digestive tract, ppl!)

In fact, at the time of writing this, I have only uploaded one file - i.e. 'The Ugly Detective Agency (TUDA); Case of the Stalker Mum'. I am currently editing a second TUDA case; one 'angelic' murder/mystery starring Tantrum, Seraph & Surly; one murderous 'journal of a lunatic' tale; and a few short stories starring certain canines who have insisted they had better see the spotlight of fame forthwith or my linen will not survive its next hanging out.

I can understand that one may be interested in the author and/or characters behind any TRUE story. But for fictional stories, surely it is simply a matter of a reader either liking the story...or not. If the story and characters are part of a series you will continue to follow them...or not. I am certainly not going to assume that your readership of murder/mysteries reflects upon your character, beliefs, and/or general humanity and behaviour. So what does the author's thoughts/beliefs/background have to do with anything?

Of course, my beliefs could be a hangover from my activist days when I was agin all things systemic. Or they could simply reflect that I am old and you are not. Or perhaps it is a more personal characteristic, in that I have chosen to embrace the secrecy of the family rather than join the ranks of 'normal' human interactions - if I actually saw such curiosity as 'normal' rather than invasive; which I don't. Or, it could be all of the above.

I neither know nor care. Let the story speak for itself, I say.

Oh and now I see this whole interview break has actually chewed up two hours!!

When one is this ancient, who can remember when things began?