Featured Interview With Gary Bonn
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I live in the wilderness deep in Scotland, UK. Rush hour is my next door neighbour going shopping. A cat retains me as his principle butler.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
At the age of eight I read Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson) and was stunned and inspired. Subsequently I read all her children’s novels. No book – or series of books has ever influenced my life and personality as much these.
Like most writers I’ve written on and off all my life – not that I would want people to see a lot of it. (It came as a profound shock that learning to write fiction requires three to four years to gain the necessary skills. Fortunately I had friends who were best-selling writers and they gave me a huge amount of support.)
Over the last ten years I’ve written eleven books. Two young adult novels were picked up and published by Firedance Books. They both received great reviews – though one picked up a rather surprising one – http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R708PC8BEDI8L/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00902Z1YO
Next came the Rude Awakening series (a collaboration with my son) Muffy College, Cambridge was well received with Cambridge students tracking me down and inviting me to one of the happiest events of my life – a mass book signing in the Paddock of Emmanuel College, sunshine, wine and cute moorhen chicks.
Following this came the science fiction series UFO:AI starting with Hive Mind – another collaboration. It grew from short stories (The Parallel Chapters) which are available free at: http://garybonn.com/scifi/ Quite how they gained such a huge female following is something of a mystery still as they were aimed at men. However as in the Rude Awakening series they have some awesome women. This may have something to do with it.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I work as a structural editor, copy editor and proofreader. I read and work on whatever is sent to me. It’s a great way to learn to love all genres – and have my breath taken away when someone develops a genre or even invents their own – for instance Jae Erwin’s ‘Stillness Dancing’.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The third in the UFOAI series: Subtle Strike. That whole series was a wonderful challenge. Five main characters in first person – it gave us a huge opportunity to look at the developing relationships of very different people having to rely on each other in extreme situations. It’s an action adventure but as in real life it’s all about people. A successful through daunting mechanism was the introduction of invisible threads or story lines. Each book is a complete story. Any two read consecutively are a complete story. The three read consecutively are yet another complete story. I’ve never worked with such a complicated structure before.
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