From Pages to Pages: #Author Interview

Do you intend to make writing a career? I am now an established Poet and Novelist and I intend to be so for the rest of my born days.

What is your greatest strength as a writer? I can describe things so that you are able to see them in your own mind’s eye. Description is my forte. Whether it be a landscape or a person I feel that I can bring a person or place to life through my prose.

How did you come up with the title? A Mandala is Sanskrit for “magic circle” and is used to meditate on to raise one’s concioisness, or it can represent a person who is fully actualized and complete in their development. Colorado Mandala was the place where all three of my main characters became themselves, some after a very long and difficult effort.

How much of the book is realistic? All of Colorado Mandala is based on real places and real people. But I invented all else. I took the characters I knew and put them into a place I knew best and let them just live their lives there. It seems to have worked.

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot? Yes. This book totally reflects the way of life I was leading back in the 1970s. It was a time of adventure and dramatic cultural change and I was a part of it. The plot may be an attempt to self heal as the main character has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as I do…and so it is very possible that in writing this book I was really trying to get some perspective on my own issues and to try and create a vehicle that would assist me in getting rid of the PTSD within my own heart. It sort of worked.

What are your goals as a writer? My goals as a writer are acceptance and an audience that likes my work. The goal of this book is an attepmpt to help others who may have PTSD understand that they are not alone. And that there is a way out of the scourge and pain that PTSD causes.

Who is your favorite author and why? Ernest Hemingway reinvented the novel and I think he deserves credit for his work, not for the farce of a life he lead as a hyper masculine character. His books are all beautiful and engaging. His sentences are solid and purposeful. There is no waste or extravagance: Just powerful but simple writing and storytelling.

Can we expect any more books from you in the future? Yes, I am now working on a new novel entitled LARKIN’S DAY. It is a the history of a family of Irish rebels who founded the Irish Citizen’s Army which was a key factor in the Easter Rising in 1916 that freed Ireland from British domination. The story is a family’s placed against the backdrop of the events of 70- years as Ireland went from a colony of England to a Republic. Only the north of Ireland remains in British hands and it will soon be majority in favor of uniting with the republic. I hope to have this book ready and waiting when Ireland celebrates it’s 100 year anniversary of the Eater Rising in Dublin. This book will reveal the true reason that the IRA killed Admiral Mountbatten in 1978, a secret that no spy agency in the world was ever able to discover.

Where do you see yourself in five years? On the New York Times Best seller list J

Are you reading any interesting books at the moment? I am studying the painter JMW Turner and may wind up writing a book about him. He basically invented and glorified “landscape” as its own art form and I desperately admire the discipline he showed to his art: For instance he always carried a sketch book and was constantly drawing everything he saw.