Featured Interview With R.A. Gregory
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
So, you want to know all about me, eh? Well, pull up a stool, buy me a drink and I’ll spill all of my deepest, darkest secrets before the night is out. No, not really, it’ll take a lot more than alcohol to peel back the layers of that particular onion. So, you’ll have to make do with the edited truth instead. Born and raised in Bristol, England, I fled the shores of my homeland for those of New Zealand back when I was only a pup. Since then, I’ve split my time between my adopted home country and S.E. Asia, working as an animal welfare expert and more recently an author. I’m also the real dad of a boisterous five-year-old and the adopted dad of a ‘stretched’ Jack Russell, who sleeps behind my chair and makes sure that I keep writing and not goofing off too much.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve been reading and loving it, ever since I can remember. I was fortunate to have an Uncle who was an English teacher, so I got lots of exposure to books, not to mention creative writing exercises (including during my summer vacations!) as a child. I remember devouring everything I could read in the local library, as well as going out to buy books with my pocket money at every opportunity. I was so innocently geeky back then, it was adorable!
In terms of writing, it’s hard to put a precise date on when I first began. I did lots of small, creative pieces as a child, but the first ‘proper’ story I wrote was really when I was about 15. It was called ‘The Bunker’ and got an A grade. I’ve still got it and might publish it one day. My grown-up career began in 2007, with a short story called ‘Death and the Schoolboy’, which got shelved until 2017, when it formed the first part of the ‘DATS’ Trilogy. Since then, I haven’t stopped writing!
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I’m a massive fan of the late Terry Pratchett and am gutted that there probably won’t be any new Discworld novels. I’m also a big fan of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Tom Sharpe and George MacDonald Fraser. In fact, reading that, I’ve just realised that most of the people I like are dead. I must find some new (and preferably living) people to read! As far as genres are concerned, then I have to admit that it’s probably fantasy, sci-fi and humour that I enjoy the most, although if someone gives me a good novel from another area then, chances are, that I will give it a go and probably enjoy it at the same time. I’m a bit of a book omnivore, to be honest, but more the type that snuffles around the lower shelves, looking for the book equivalent of truffles, than flitting lightly among the higher shelves of the canopy.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest published book is called ‘Drynwideon, The Sword of Destiny – Yeah, Right’. It’s a very light-hearted poke at the fantasy genre from someone who loves it dearly. Starting with a sarcastic, self-centred anti-hero, who flees from his cannibalistic village in search of paradise, it’s the kind of book in which nothing quite works out the way that you or the characters expect. It’s a bit like real life in that respect, although as far as I know, the real world isn’t populated by claustrophobic-agoraphobic dwarfs, psychotic half-fairies and ancient, chemically assisted barbarians with Farting Phoenixes!
Their adventure takes them the length (but not breadth) of a land populated with plenty of unusual characters and situations, drawing them ever closer towards an inevitable, but highly unwanted, encounter with Ka, the merciless Dragon Princess, who thinks nothing of crushing her adversaries skulls between her fingertips, when she is not fricasseeing them with blazing hot gouts of flame, that is.
Believe it or not, although it’s a shade over 100,000 words, I enjoyed it so much that it only took me three months to write from beginning to end. Talk about the words just pouring out. It really was a story that wanted to be told!
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