Alistair McIntyre

I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, but I moved to Texas at the ripe old age of 13. Moving from one predominantly white, English-speaking country to another may not seem that daunting, but the cultures are ridiculously different. For one, when I first moved, no one could understand me, and I couldn't understand them. Now I'm trilingual: Scottish, English, and American (or at least, Texan).

A lot of my stories feature Scottish characters (Billy Baird in PHALANX ALPHA, Bruce and Gil in RISE OF CITHRIA: THE CHOSEN), but they're typically not the main character. Now that I think about it, pretty much everything I write has a British character of some description. Being able to authentically insert a foreigner into the mix adds a flavor that I enjoy. For a simple example, think of Jason Statham in any American movie he does.

Melding cultures together presents more natural conflict, and conflict is something we love to read about.

In 8th grade I took my first stab at creative writing with some limited success, but honestly I didn't pick up the pen with a meaningful purpose until 24 or 25. I got one of my friends hooked on reading, and we would sit and talk about ideas for stories. Eventually I settled on a short story (that I will probably publish in the near future, after a lot of editing) that let me dive into building a story from nothing.

My friend helped iron out the kinks, and at the end of the day we had something both of us would enjoy reading. Not that long after that, I started the outline for PHALANX ALPHA.