Featured Interview With Finn Eccleston
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Hi! I’m a university student who loves writing in my free time. I’ve written a few short stories and have some novel-length threads in progress, but I’ve only published the one – The Community, in April 2023.
Born and raised in the big CA – not California.
Still live in Canada, southern Ontario to be exact (I know, that really narrows it down). Don’t have a pet of my own, but a friend of mine has a dog I absolutely adore and that I spend every moment I can with. She’s essentially my adopted doggo.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started reading at a very young age – at that time it was all dinosaur and history, like roman history, books. Then I graduated to sports novelizations and mythology, primarily Greek mythology with a dash of Egyptian – shout out Rick Riordan.
I began writing in elementary school, if you can call it that. A few words here, a few words there. Taking the ‘last man on earth…there was a knock at the door’ prompt and turning into a few chapters about a Barack Obama assassination and tiny aliens with Bieber Fever, a horrifying mess that still sits in one of my drawers.
I have many bad ideas. You only read the less bad ones.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I used to love reading the new Hardy Boys books when I was younger, as well as Encyclopedia Brown. Those are more classic ‘whodunit’ styles of detective work for younger audiences.
My work skews a bit more juvenile and adult at the same time, in that I use cross language and immature humour – as is an accurate portrayal for both my age and the age of my characters – yet I don’t have that wizened old gaze of a withered adult, and so I could use more polish in my storycraft.
Currently, I’m digging into F. Scott Fitzgerald’s (I love that Ted 2 joke) short story work, and then it’s on to the complete Sherlock Holmes collection!
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Community is a book about memory, adventure, mystery, and loss, about grappling with identity, as so many of us do.
The main character Jay has his world flipped upside down when he begins experiencing visions of a life he does not remember, one that does not fit with his current conception of himself and the life he’s lived up to this point. This internal turmoil causes him to look around his external environment for signs that something might also be amiss here – and he finds them in spades.
He and his friends rally to try to find out the truth and survive the consequences of newly-opened doors perhaps better left closed, all while Jay tries to remain sane as more and more memories flood in, memories that he’d perhaps rather keep buried.
Read it today, wherever you read: https://books2read.com/u/4jBwMo
A little bit more about the themes of the book:
As pertains to identity, it’s specifically about trying to merge the past self and current self, which can sometimes feel like two entirely different people, into a unified idea of a human being – you.
For loss, there’s a focus on the odd tinge to loss when you find out you’ve lost something you didn’t even know you had. The grief is still there, but it’s mixed in with confusion and surprise and your attempt to contextualize your past life through the lens of this new information.
The above concepts are lightly touched on, hinted at but never fully explored, during this book. They’ll be delved into more in Project M Book 2, (cautiously optimistically) coming out in 2024.
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Finn Eccleston Facebook Page