What drives your art? What forces you, rides you, hustles you, controls you until its latest needs have been met? What really drives you to create speculative fiction art, be it words or images?

There’s no one answer to that. A bit of music might spark an idea. I might be standing in line at a store and overhear something. The way the light is reflecting off things might jostle the creative connections in my brain. There’s no telling. Far too often, falling asleep seems to be the trigger and then I’m out of bed and at the computer writing instead of doing what I intended to do. Sleep. Boredom’ll work too. There are times when I’m truly bored, so I’ll open Bryce and just start loading 3d objects into the scene, create some sort of water terrain and see what comes out.

If there was the possibility of becoming any speculative fiction character ever created (except your own), would you? Who? Why?

You stole my interview questions Naw, not really. What do you mean, if there was the possibility of becoming any speculative character? Don’t you know every writer becomes the characters he or she is writing about? Happens all the time. If it hasn’t happened to you, you haven’t been writing the right kind of fiction. Other than my own characters, who would I pick? Qui-gon Jinn.

If you could only take one author’s works compressed on an e-book reader on a “one-bag-only” one-way trip to another galaxy, whose works would it be and why?

Other than mine, you mean? Would have to be Roger Zelazny.

Why did you publish this anthology? What roused your interest and made you get this particular book into the public’s hands?

My assistant editor was distressed because a previous anthology-that-shall-remain-unnamed had only sold 5 copies and he wanted to see it back in print. I thought it would be a good idea for Flashing Swords [the original publisher of RotS] to have a book as well as printed issues of the magazine (and besides, my assistant editor just wanted it so badly, I didn’t want to see him disappointed).

In the privacy of your favorite writing nook, do you act out your protagonist’s actions? Do you know how to use his weapons? Do you wear his clothes? Do you talk like him?

The only time I act anything out is when I’m trying to get a clear picture of the action so I can describe it correctly in print. When I was in Jr. High and High school, my friends and I would get together and “work on stories.” We’d act them out, we’d basically live-action role play and all of that world building and character building are what I use when I write now. That turned into more structured RPGs when I got old enough to have kids and then online MUDs for a while (till everyone wanted graphical interfaces which I can’t program). Now I just write. Or do art. Or edit. Or chase down free-range chocolate bars with my cats.

Quick: List your first thought as your answers to these questions about the future of genre fiction:

Printing Methods: Offset or Print-on-Demand?

Both. Depends on what I want it for.

Reading Formats: Electronic or Print?

Both, but if you’re talking about submissions, Electronic.

Book Tours: Physical or Virtual?

Physical.

Reading Habits: Dead, Dying, Alive, Growing?

I haven’t the faintest idea how to answer this question.

Length: Flash, Short, Novella, 1970’s novel (60k), 1980’s novel (80k), 1990’s novel (120k), 2000’s novel (150k)

All of the above and everything else. Depends on what I’m doing with it.

Robert E. Howard, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, Louis L’Amour, Frederick Faust, Ian Fleming, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini . . . the list could go on. Some lived long lives, some flared and burned out young. All lived life hard. All wrote pulse-pounding action-adventure, often dipping into the many different genres they share, yet each eventually establishing their name within a specific one. What do you believe you havein common with these authors, and what makes you so sure speculative fiction – heroic fantasy fiction to be precise – is your genre? Or is it?

They wrote. I write. I don’t know if heroic fantasy is my genre or not. I just finished a 6 book series which is epic in every since. It’s been compared to the Shadow Trilogy by George Lucas and has readers all over the globe (who won’t lynch me now that I’ve finished it). The characters are truly heroes but it isn’t “heroic fantasy” in the same sense that any of the authors mentioned above wrote. My genre is usually sci-fi/fantasy mixed. The first book in the series is Wizard’s Bane (no, not the Wizard’s Bane by Rick Cook, the Wizard’s Bane by crystalwizard. Sorry Rick, I really didn’t mean to steal your title).

Thank you for publishing RotS, Crystalwizard. Thank you, as well, for your wonderful answers to these questions. Your assistant editor is grateful

Crystalwizard not only paid for the production and publication of RotS, she handled all the administrative, art, printing, and assistant editor support. In short, she enabled me to bring the book to life. Among the (too many) hats Crystalwizard wears, she is an author and a graphic artist, and owner of Cyberwizard Productions, where she is the editor and publisher of books (under eight imprints) and the magazine Abandoned Towers.

Review Praise for Return of the Sword

“If you like sword and sorcery fantasy, you will like this anthology.” ~ John Ottinger

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