Featured Interview With Woelf Dietrich
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
As a kid I consumed books and comics by the truckloads, reading anything from fantasy to westerns to science fiction. I wanted to stay in that dream state so I began making up my own stories, writing my first short story at 12. I also started drawing my own comics–little stick figures with dialogue balloons that later evolved into musclebound warriors and scantly clad vixens. I gave them battle axes and broadswords and unleashed them onto the world. A silent chaos ensued followed by crickets chirping and nothing much else, but boy, did I entertain myself. Alas, life kept interfering and I allowed it, and so nothing came from my artistic endeavors.
After graduating high school I served a year in the military where I learned how to dig trenches, eat quickly, and miss girls. I travelled to Israel and lived on a Kibbutz for eight months, working in avocado fields and drinking cheap vodka. I sold pots and pans and educational toys in Africa for a while and almost got shot in Zimbabwe. I did a brief stint as cartoonist somewhere and an even briefer stint as reporter somewhere else. Somehow, and maybe by accident, I ended up in law school and became a lawyer. I did that for almost a decade.
These days I’m back to writing stories. A calling I ignored for far too long. I mostly write tales of dark fantasy and the supernatural. Sometimes I write other things. I now live in New Zealand, and with a wife and kids, and a dog, I’ll be staying put for the foreseeable future.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
At 12. We were asked to submit a one page short story for class. I handed in eight pages. I discovered I like writing, then, which made sense, given that I was reading ferociously at the time. Through the years I’ve written many stories, but never really invested enough time to make them readable. Then, one day in 2010, I got this idea for a short story and I told myself I would finish it, no matter what. If I did this right, at least I could then say I hacked at it with all my might. The adage “It’s better to have tried than not to have tried at all” was my mantra while I wrote the story. I finished it and left it. I felt satisfied that I had tried my best and sad, completely convinced I couldn’t write. A year went by and things changed. I won’t bore your readers with the details, but writing suddenly became the only option left open to me, which is pretty dark considering that a year previously I was thoroughly convinced I couldn’t write. I went back to the story to polish it and discovered it wasn’t so bad after all. I also realized the scope was too big for just a short story. It deserved to be told on a much grander scale, and so begun research for The Spirit Bow. What really propelled me into this world is discovering that the ideas I used in the original story, the locations and rough mythos, all resembled actual places and even characters and incidents in history. It is an epic fantasy tale that takes place in an antediluvian Sumer. The history, the gods, the geography, etc., all fit perfectly with what I had conjured up at the time. I was blown away by this discovery.
But it was taking too long. The research and writing alone was immense and it took me through the first seven months of 2012, and still I wasn’t even close to finishing the project. While I was working on Spirit Bow, something else brewed in the back of my mind, an idea for a contemporary fantasy tale that weaved things a bit differently than you would find in your standard urban fantasy story. I decided to pay it attention. I tapped into various mythologies for this one, leaning heavily on Sumerian and Norse mythologies. That I was neck-deep in Sumerian lore helped grow the idea, of course. I started writing the The Seals of Abgal in August 2012 and finished the final draft in November. After editing and rewrites I published the book on 31 December 2012.
As with Spirit Bow, during the writing process of Seals I realized the concept was too big for just a novella (Yeah, I know. not again, right?). A whole new mythos and arc had developed and it was begging me to make it real. The Seals of Abgal is thus the prequel to the Guardians of the Seals series. I am currently busy with a novel titled, The Morrigan, which takes place immediately after the events in The Seals of Abgal.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Everyone I have ever read who showed me the beauty and magic of words and stories. I need to explain. There is no one book or author that prompted me to write what I write. I’ve always had an affinity for fantasy and its various sub-genres. But I can say the same of other genres too, including literary fiction. So my inspiration, generally and for future projects, will always include Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert B. Parker, A.J. Quinnell, Hammond Innes, Desmond Bagley, Louis L’Amour, Ernest Hemingway, Neil Gaiman, John Grisham, Robert Harris, Morris West, David Eddings, Ken Follett, JRR Tolkien, and a lot of others whose names I don’t recall at the moment.
This is not and never will be, a closed list. All of these guys make me want to write. At the moment I’m a Gaiman fanboy. I also love Mark Lawrence’s work and Bernard Cornwell’s Warrior Chronicles. I’m addicted to David Gemmell’s heroic fantasy series. You cannot pinpoint only one writer or book. All of them influenced me and shaped me. Some I read multiple times. As you go through life and mature, you go through different stages, experience emotions that are ever evolving, and the books are there, each one befitting whatever mood you are in, whatever level of maturity you’ve attained. The same book can impact you differently the next year or it can call back emotions you’ve long forgotten.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Seals of Abal is a 128-page novella about a powerfully magical grimoire by the same name. The story involves a bookstore owner, Sebastian Kaine (who may or may not have possession of the book) and an ancient, putrid evil that seeks to own the book at all costs. Sebastian’s only goal is to stay alive… or is it?
It is an introduction to my Guardians of the Seals series. The next book is titled The Morrigan and is in the final stages of revision.
I won’t bore you with an extended arc description of the series, so here is the gist of it:
“Behind the fabric of our reality supernatural forces are at war with each other and have been since before time, and in the middle of this conflict is Sebastian Kaine, who, torn between loyalties to factions on both sides, must try to unravel the mystery of his family’s past and deal with his feelings towards a strange and beautiful woman who knows more about him and his family than he does. And he needs to do all of this without losing the Seals of Abgal.”
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