1.
Before
retiring and taking up writing fiction as a past time, I taught English
Literature. Several talented students of mine have gone on to become successful
writers.
Did teaching influence my choices as a
writer? Absolutely.
When you introduce young minds to the
great works of great artists, (e.g., Hamlet,
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Portrait of the Artist As A young Man, Gulliver’s
Travels, The Handmaid’s Tale), you are constantly challenging yourself to
get it right, to understand not only who, what, and when, but also how, and to
elucidate on these considerations as discussion ensues. In your own writing,
you want to emulate, difficult though it is to do so, but you have to try.
2.
Genres:
I lean towards mystery, with romantic entanglement an integral part of the
action. Greek mythology and literary allusion underpin plot development. Irony
is pervasive.
3.
Latest
release: Shades Of Persephone is my first
full-length novel, published with BWL in September 2019, although seventeen
excerpts from this work have appeared previously in a variety of publications,
in both hard copy and online.
4.
At
present I am doing a final revision of Lighting
The Lamp, a full-length novel due
to be published in 2020 by BWL. Sixteen selections from this work have been
published independently, the latest being “Glorious Disorder” in Humanist Perspective (Fall 2019).
Concurrently, I am working on a first
draft of a work tentatively titled Séjour Saint-Louis, where the
troubles in a contemporary family mirror those of the tragic poet Émile
Nelligan.
5.
Does
my reading influence my writing? Absolutely.
Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandrian Quartet provided the impetus for Shades Of Persephone. John Fowles’ The Magus gave me the Greek setting.
Joyce’s Portrait inspired more than one scene in Lighting The Lamp, as did the philosophical musing of Percy Bysshe
Shelley. Marcel Proust plays a part
here as well.
The poems of Émile Nelligan are working
thematically into Séjour Saint-Louis.
The muse visits
me when I read the novels of John Banville and Ian McEwan.
6.
Find
me at the following:
reedstirling@gmail.com
My website: reedstirlingwrites.com
Books
We Love Publishing, Inc.
Amazon,
Goodreads, Smashwords
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