Featured Interview With Sever Bronny
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Born in Poland, raised in Nigeria and later Toronto, Canada. Parents moved around a lot, and I feel fortunate to have seen a bit of the world in my formative years. Think it might have helped develop an overactive imagination (and a shorter attention span–oh wait, that was the Nintendo).
I live in Victoria, BC, Canada right now with my wife. I have a cat named Buddha, a mild-mannered but utterly adorable five-year-old tabby.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was probably around thirteen-years-old when I discovered fantasy and role-playing games. Rifts specifically. I was able to create worlds and characters and it was the most exciting thing ever. Around that time a book truly blew me away — Time of the Twins by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, in the Dragonlance saga. I loved Raistlin; I loved the tragedy; I loved the epic scale of it. It left an indelible impression, one that taints my writing to this day.
Huma was another great book in the Dragonlance series that I must have read at least five times. A slew of books followed, from Tolkien to Siddhartha. I fell in love with reading, even though my rate of reading is, well, snails can read faster I think. I really like to absorb every word and I haven’t quite figured out how to blow through books like some people can–namely my wife. She can finish a book a day, it’s crazy. Meanwhile I’m looking at her as if she has superpowers and struggling to finish a few chapters here and there.
I actually started writing a book when I was sixteen or so. Unfortunately, I lost it to a hard drive crash and promptly gave up, promising myself I’d try again in later life. The idea of that book I turned into a full-length musical concept album anyway (named The Orwellian Night, by my band Tribal Machine), so it wasn’t entirely lost. I was an impulsive and adventurous teenager and dived head-first into music, which absorbed all of my attention for a very long time.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
The person responsible for me actually sitting down at the computer to write a book was J.K. Rowling. I had so much fun reading Harry Potter I wanted to write my own story that fulfilled that aching desire for MORE. I must have read HP at least five times by now, though I’ve been holding off reading it a sixth time since I started writing (to allow my own style to develop).
I love reading gritty fantasy (reading Joe Abercrombie’s First Law Series), such as George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones. Currently looking for more works in that field. I also enjoy true-life adventure stories, such as Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Sebastian Junger’s Perfect Storm, and Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers. There’s something about reading absorbing and harrowing life-and-death struggles that intrigues me. It also inspires me to place my characters in truly dangerous situations.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Arcane is the first book in a grand fantasy-adventure series about three fourteen-year-old friends: Augum, Bridget and Leera. Augum, whose past is plagued by loneliness and bullying, had one ambition–to become a knight. When that desire comes to a tragic end, he pursues something he thought a children’s tale–becoming a warlock.
But one of the greatest challenges for him turns out to be navigating friendship, for other than a beaten-down mule, he has never had a single friend. Suddenly having two girls around is hard enough–yet a new tragedy, one with kingdom-wide consequences, cements them as friends that depend on each other for survival.
Along the way they explore an ancient abandoned castle, get trained by a legendary sorceress, and discover old secrets lost to time, all the while trying to elude a ruthless and ambitious enemy.
Took me about three years to hone the book to its final state. In that time I’ve also finished books two and three in the series, with a fourth in the middle stages of completion. After all those hours, late nights, near-impossible obstacles … I can’t express how exciting it is to see my work finally go to press.
Thank you for this 🙂
-Sever Bronny
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Sever Bronny is a musician and author living in Victoria, British Columbia. He has released three albums with his industrial-rock music project Tribal Machine, including the full-length concept album The Orwellian Night. One of his songs can be heard in the feature-length film The Gene Generation. Arcane is his first book. The second book in The Arinthian Line series is expected to be released December / January.
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