Featured Interview With Michael B. Koep
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born, raised and still live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I don’t have any pets. I do love the idea of having a floppy eared rabbit live in my studio (probably because of reading Watership Down when I was young). I would name her Hazel. Read to her. Run story ideas by her. See if it is possible to train her to turn the lights on and off, turn the stereo up and down— possibly make coffee. But so far, I’ve not met the right roommate rabbit.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My love affair with reading began when I was nine—some time after seeing Star Wars in 1977, and then seeing Ralph Bakshi’s animated version of The Lord of the Rings at a downtown theater. That interest in fantasy and Sci-Fi led my nose between the covers of books. Writing my own stories and journaling began in grade school. At ten I attempted my first book—a Tolkienesque epic complete with a language, maps and illustrations (I still have it). In Jr. High and High School I discovered rock music and the drum kit. Journal content then shifted to the essays about juggling teenage life as a drummer. And as my music obsession deepened I started penning lyrics—an interest I continue to work at.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I’ll still try to carve out time to read Tolkien every other fall, if I can. That trilogy to me is much like a favorite record or song. I read several genres at the same time and my interests are all over the place. I went through a long phase of biographies. I enjoy books on travel. There’s usually a new book of poetry laying around. My most recent favorites: Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens and Homo Deus, Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See. I’m currently reading a not yet published manuscript on Geoffrey Chaucer.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Psychologist Loche Newirth becomes hunted when he sees a painting that opens a window onto the afterlife. An ancient order of men seeking to control the art pursue him across the world through centuries, into madness and beyond. The first part of Michael B. Koep’s The Newirth Mythology-The Invasion of Heaven is mystery, adventure, myth, betrayal, murder and madness.
Psychologist Loche Newirth wonders if it was his fall: the fifty foot drop rom the rocky cliff to the icy water below. Is this why he has been hallucinating? Or is it because one of his clients is dead, or his mentor has gone mad or that his wife is leaving him? He can’t bring himself to believe what he has been seeing. Insane things like a massive, searching eye. He sees it in the water below the cliff. He sees it in mirrors, on walls: a massive, crystal blue iris and fathomless pupil there in the center of his life, looking at him.
To find the answer, Loche pens the recent events of his life into a book and leaves the work behind for his mentor, Doctor Marcus Reardon, to interpret. As Reardon reads, he plunges into the harrowing depths of Loche’s reality: his loss of a client, the discovery of an unknown past, an ancient conflict over possession of the human condition, the awesome reality of the gods walking among us, and the crimes of humanity invading the hope that lies beyond the grave.
And along the way, Loche tells of unforgettable characters: the torn and manic housewife that teeters on the edge of sanity, and the depressed, swashbuckling swordsman that believes he is over six hundred years old, the stoned and prolific painter and his perilous work he must keep secret, and the beautiful business woman that abandons her life’s work for a love she never expected.
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