Featured Interview With Terry Birdgenaw
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in Ottawa, Canada's capital and I now live in Montreal. In my picture, I am holding Sheeba my 7-year-old Morkie, who has more personality than many humans.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I have been fascinated with books for as far back as I can remember. My mother used to substitute teach in a kindergarten class and would bring me along when I was 3 or 4. My favorite part was when she read to the class, and let me pick the books from the ones she read to me at home. Although I excelled at English and creative writing in school, I ventured into the sciences for my university studies and my career. I didn't start writing fiction for almost 60 years since those kindergarten classes with my mom.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Although I enjoy thrillers and fantasy, my writings have been largely influenced by classic dystopian novels like Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I wrote my latest book during the Covid-19 pandemic and it got so long that I broke it into three. My trilogy, The Antunite Chronicles, was written between January 2020 and August 2022 and was released between May and September 2022. (see: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1JNBCTK?binding=kindle_edition&searchxofy=true&qid=1664475447&sr=1-1)
The first book, Antuna's Story A Watership Down-like story about surviving a big upheaval, with a struggle between altruism and aggression within insects transported through a wormhole to another planet. A timely allegory in which the joy of friendship, between a small ant Antuna and her bee, termite, and spider friends, is eclipsed by the horrors of war, where a Putin-like character puts his own glory above all else and destroys entire communities.
The second, book, The Rise and Fall of Antocracy, is an Orwellian allegory where a fledging democracy is derailed by a Trump-like character with autocratic tendencies who allows a planet to die while ignoring an environmental crisis. The dictators' greed results in a climate catastrophe that a young cyborg ant, Gretant, and her insectoid bug friend, Thunbug, desperately try to circumvent.
The third book, Antunites Unite, is a dystopian tale in which spies from its moon must liberate the society on the mother planet, where the leaders have used histrionics, bionics, and socionics to subjugate their citizens. Tiny ants, Rose and Jasper, infiltrate the Antalone colony, where they are transformed into cyborgs, and work with other chameleon cyborg ant spies to overcome the oppression of black and brown cyborg ants by the dominant red cyborg ants.
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Terry Birdgenaw Twitter Account
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