Featured Interview With John Smale
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in the West of England and went to University in Newcastle upon Tyne, where I studied business and marketing. I worked for large multi-national companies until I realised my life was about convincing people to buy things that they did not really need.
I realised I needed a change in my life. I trained as a therapist and helped many, many people to overcome their problems.
I now live in the South West of France among the vineyards where I have continued my writing and enjoying a peaceful and satisfying life.
I also run a small publishing company that enables authors to get their books set up and printed at an affordable cost. I do not like companies that do the same work as I do, but for huge amounts of money, and profit.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
A major part of being a therapist was constructing metaphors to give my clients a ‘different view of life’. And from those I wrote a series of short stories and metaphors which were published in three books, and have sold well. The aim is to both entertain and help the readers.
I like to look at life in a different way, hence THE BOOK THAT READS THE READER, my idea of writing short stories as if they were the stories about people who were read by the book they are reading. This surreal style changes the perspective of the teller of stories away from the first and third person to that of an inanimate and emotion-free entity. This makes the stories ‘outside-the-box and enables humour, sadness and entertainment.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My early influences were French authors who used different approaches to writing.
Now, I enjoy reading the books that are submitted to me for publishing. I avoid certain types of books but the range I have is very wide including fiction to biographies, sort and music.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
A great summary of the THE BOOK THT READS THE READER was given in a review by the editor of Mensa magazine.
REVIEW IN MENSA MAGAZINE
What if your book could read you…
Imagine, if you will, that you pick up a book and start reading…and the book starts reading you…
It knows instantly your story, all your secrets, your thoughts and deeds, right down to your very soul.
“You think you are reading me. You are, but I am also reading you. I am inside your head. It’s a strange place to be, to be honest.”
That is the surreal and engaging scenario created in this quite wonderful work, penned by Mensa member John Smale.
It is a vehicle that allows the book (writer) to tell a collection of what could be seen as short stories but definitely with a twist.
There is the battered wife and a happy ending…the innocent man in jail, framed by his wife and her gangster lover…who get their just desserts…the old man with dementia in a care home who knows more than most people think…and the priest who dies in a very surprising confessional moment…
This is a brilliant book. The stories would very much have stood up as a collection of work in their own right but the extra and imaginative addition of the idea that there is a book that reads people adds to the brilliance.
If you like stories with a twist, ones that reveal the vagaries of life in all it many forms then this is definitely for you.
Very highly recommended.
Brian Page editor
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles