With me today is Will Macmillan Jones, author of The Banned Underground series (and the Alliance of Worldbuilders’ resident Comedy Goon, as noted above). He was kind enough to answer a few questions for me, though without the aid of the Spanish Inquisition (and I’d so been looking forward to calling them up – no one expects the Spanish Inquisition! :D).
Tell us about yourself.
My bio will tell you that I’m a fifty-something lover of blues, rock, and jazz, and have (sadly) spent much of my time working as an accountant. Some of my friends suspect that I’m a covert adrenaline junkie as well, having crashed hang gliders, done a little sailing (didn’t like capsizing), fallen over on the way up several hills and crashed the odd motorbike, and put various cars into ditches. Er, there seems to be a bit of a pattern forming there. . .
Have you always been interested in writing, or is it a recently developed passion?
I’ve always loved reading, ever since I was a small child. My father was a primary school teacher and read to me every night from a young age, something I’ve done with my own kids, too. It’s brilliant fun! So when at grammar school I was encouraged to write, I loved it. But then it took a back seat for many years, until I discovered you could get a minor flesh wound from a pen instead of crashing into things, and I haven’t looked back since.
Can you tell us a little about some of your other writing projects? Are they all fantasy, or do you write in more than one genre?
As well as the fantasy, I also write some paranormal books, on the edge of horror. The first of these has been very well received indeed, and so I’ve a sequel in the works. There’s also a children’s fantasy and a YA fantasy coming along. I think I stay pretty much round worlds of pure imagination, because it’s so satisfying to create something that can be made to feel real.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 