Where do you live?
I currently live in Brisbane, half way up the east coast of Australia. Originally I was up in Townsville, about 1,600 kilometers north, right in the middle of cyclone country.
What’s your home life like?
Pretty normal. Married, no kids, recently lost my psychotic cat so there's no-one to keep me in line now. I pay the bills as a 9 to 5 office desk jockey, a boring and uninspiring job that does, unfortunately, pay regularly and adequately.
What genre(s) do you like to write? To read?
I write science fiction but I do have a very broad definition of what that is, and it lets me play around with circumstance and characters quite a bit. I haven't written any space opera or hard core tech sci-fi. I'll leave that for the experts. I write flash and short stories and am closing in on my first novel.
I read widely, fiction and non-fiction (and the day job lets me read a lot of non-fiction), I seem to steer clear of erotica and romance novels; and westerns, my dad loved them so naturally I ...
At the moment I am starting on the second volume of Kotkin's biography of Stalin and loving it. Why did you start writing?
I started in 1996. I found I had a bit of time and I'd been reading and watching sci-fi since I could walk. One of my earliest memories is of watching the old marionation shows 'Thunderbirds' and 'Fireball XL5' on a black and white TV, and I still have the 'Tom Swift' book collection I bought one by one as a kid, 10c each, so sci-fi and I go back a long way. I figured I'd taken for so many years, and gotten so much enjoyment and pleasure out of reading, that I should try to give back. It's still my prime motivation.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
Apart from read, sleep, work and cook? Travel is a big thing, to get out and see parts of the world that challenge and confront me. I play a bit of guitar (badly, I can get references from my neighbors) and have been building a wooden ship model on and off for the past 10 years.
Where do you like to go when looking for a new book to read?
I still love paper rather than eBooks, so I am a second hand book store stalker, but more and more I'm hunting them down on the net.
I keep an eye on blogs (like this one), Goodreads and indie writers on Twitter for new titles; it's unbelievable how much variety is out there.
At what point do you call it quits when reading a new book?
I've only ever tossed three books aside in my life, and one of those was Ishiguro's Remains of the Day (I should never have bought that one, it held no interest and I just wanted to see what a Booker prize winner was like). I think I'm just too stubborn.
Are you independently or traditionally published?
My two short story collections are independently published; my short stories by themselves appeared on various web logs and webzines, fantastic places to get encouragement and real reader feedback on my writing.
How many books/stories have you published so far?
I've two short story collections published, and 50 odd short and flash science fiction pieces in anthologies, webzines and eMags. And a few poems and drabbles published as well over the years.
What book/story are you currently promoting or working on?
I've just released my second short story collection, 'Sex and the Single Cosmonaut', which is available in paperback or Kindle through Amazon
My novel 'Sha'kert' is consuming most of my time now. I've recently finished the first draft and am now starting the (terrifying I am told) process of edition and revising.
What’s the elevator pitch?
A young family discover their daughter has a terminal illness; to cure it they get involved with organized crime, and are eventually exposed.
A young man runs away from his Amish community even as they are being forced from their farm by rapacious land speculators. Circumstances bring them together; one family banished to a planet at the far edge of the galaxy; a community going to the same planet to start a new life and preserve their faith, one person going reluctantly to stay close to the mother he left. An in-flight accident puts them on an uncharted, inhospitable world with no chance of rescue. As they struggle for survival and explore their new world relationships crumble and change as their beliefs and attitudes are tested to the limit. How long have you been working on it?
It's taken me just on eighteen months to get it all down to first draft.
When will it be available to buy? Where?
If things go smoothly I will have it finished in another year, and on shelves six months after that.
If I get a traditional publisher or go independent again, it will still be out in late 2020 to mid 2021. Any longer its too long. I will have details on my blog when Sha'kert is available and will be promoting int shamelessly on Twitter; as with most books these days, look to Amazon to find it too. How can readers find you?
These are the two main active presences I have.
What inspires you to keep writing?"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint on broken glass." "Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl she used to be. But a great artist - a master - can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone ... see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply imprisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there never was a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her." Anything you’d like to add?
Not much really.
Just keep on smiling and don't take life too seriously - no-one gets out alive! Ciao
Many thanks to Ishmael for participating from the land down under. I wish him all the best in his professional, personal, and creative endeavors.
Sincerely,Nicholas P. AdamsJust a small-town boy with an overactive imagination.
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