Featured Interview With David S Reynolds
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born, raised, and live in Tucson, Arizona. I currently share a house with my lovely wife, a neurotic rescue Sheltie, and a demanding cat. In between writing short stories I teach GED classes. This provides the money that I sink into motorcycles, model airplanes, and photography stuff. Someday I might pick something to focus on.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I grew up in a house full of books. They were all around me and the people in my house actually read them so being fascinated with books is really not all that strange. In my world, people have books and they read them. As I grew older I became more and more interested in how a good story can explore an idea or point out social issues without exactly naming them.
I’m not really sure when I started writing. According to legend, my 4th grade teacher recommended that I be tested for special education because I would tell stories but never wrote them down. I don’t remember this for I was too busy being a kid at the time. After a bunch of testing it was decided that I had a learning disability and couldn’t spell. (I still can’t spell which amuses my students greatly.) At any rate, I had this background of people telling me I could write so eventually I decided to put their faith in my ability to good use. My first flash fiction, What Price for Vengeance, eventually became my first short, I’m Sorry. Later I discovered e publishing and I haven’t looked back.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I suppose it’s a bit cliche to say that anything by Asimov, Bradbury, or Clark is going to be good. Mostly I tend to look for an interesting story and then go from there. Most of my reading bounces between mystery and sci-fi but I’ll try just about anything.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest published short is Don’t Press the Red X. It sprang up from a random comment a co-worker made while using the copy machine. I thought it was a fun statement that needed a story. Once the idea filled out I wrote the story down in a day! It’s a mix of time travel and Pandora’s box with a bit of mystery thrown in as well. Sprinkled of top of all this is that first day at work nervousness that we all know too well.
Soon to be released is Aware. Aware spent much more time gestating than Red X, probably about a year between basic idea to finished story. Actual writing time is much less than than that however as I would frequently put it away as I got distracted by something else. Aware came to being because I wanted to write a story about a robot that becomes sentient. The idea came from a book I was reading at the time where an outside power made an existing robot sentient. I found the idea intriguing and wondered what it would look like from the robot’s point of view if this were to happen by accident.
The accident turned out to be a meteor striking an ore runner in space that sends Repair Bot 3 spinning off into space and on a journey of self discovery and growth. Along the way RB3’s story introduced me to Jenkens, a hard as nails space navigator that hates robots. She was originally created simply to have someone for RB3 to talk to and ended up being much greater than that. Her story came to explore what it means to be human just as much as RB3 did. It really was a wonderful surprise.
Aware should be out by the end of November at the latest and I will let everybody who follows me on Facebook and Twitter know when it is released.
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