Featured Interview With Gaetano Brown
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Utica, New York but raised primarily in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. I now live in Albuquerque, New Mexico with my wife Michelle, who is also one of my editors.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I never really had a fascination with books in general but I had a fascination with movies and writing. I began writing at the age of 10 and wrote short stories. They were mostly stories about my life. I got into fiction writing at 13 and wrote many short stories for middle and high school. I wrote my first published book in 2012, it was a short novella called Vulnerable. I was very inexperienced in writing publishable works, so the 96 pages took about four years to write. As my imagination began to unfold, writing became easier and I’m now on my sixth book.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I absolutely loved the works of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. While two very different styles, I found that out of all of the published authors in the world, they had the broadest imaginations and their books really stood out. However, my biggest inspiration wasn’t even a published author, it was a video game writer, Sam Lake. I absolutely fell in love with his work on the games Max Payne, Max Payne 2, and Alan Wake. For some reason, those games were the ones that convinced me that I could pursue my dream as a writer.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My most recent published work was a novel, A Vulnerable Broken Mind. It released in December of 2014 and is the novel version of my first book Vulnerable. It is about a couple that is going on the vacation of their dreams and that dream turns into a nightmare in the most disturbing fashion. I wrote A Vulnerable Broken Mind with the intention of writing the most disturbing and sickening tale I could think of but still keep it addicting to the reader. It’s not a children’s book by any means. I am extremely proud of how the book turned out. It was my most professionally done book to date with two editors on the project. It’s been my best reviewed book thus far and I feel very fortunate and lucky to have gotten the response that I have gotten for that book.
The latest book that I’m working on now is in its editing stage and is due to release in May of 2016. For years I’ve wanted to write a vampire novel but generally lost interest with the release of Twilight. I felt the genre had taken a bit of a topple with Twilight. While I’ll never make fun of Stephenie Meyer and her success, I do feel that her books did give a lot of young readers a false impression of what the Vampire genre is and how versatile it can be. Every young reader in the world thought vampires were only what Twilight produced and I didn’t like it.
After writing A Vulnerable Broken Mind, I really wanted to do the Vampire novel again. I wanted a story that differed greatly from Twilight, but also sort of differed from most Vampire novels in general. I wanted a Vampire novel that was more reality based than anything else and wasn’t overly fantasy and gothic. I wanted a love story, but I didn’t want a lot of kissing, love making, and all the rest of the cliches that bog down the story. I wanted a tale of sympathy, pain, and misunderstanding. The story took nearly two years to write and it feels very rewarding to finally be in the editing phase and I truly can’t wait to publish it.
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