All Lies Begin with Truth follows the people in a small Kentucky town dealing with a natural gas extraction project that is impacting all areas of their town and lives. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I’m a college professor, and I had taught a class in Contemporary Literature. The texts I chose had the theme of “region and place,” one being Appalachia since I live in that area. One of the books I assigned (and reread) was Lost Mountain by Erik Reece, a creative nonfiction work about strip mining and mountaintop removal in Kentucky. This book affected me in a way that I felt that I needed to continue with this story—or at least, tell another similar story. I originally set out to write about strip mining but became aware that coal was in the process of being de-emphasized through newer energy extraction initiatives such as hydraulic fracturing. Once that idea got into my mind, I began scouring maps and discovered the New Albany Shale Basin resting beneath a small town in western Kentucky where strip mining and gas extraction had already occurred. And that got the ball rolling.

How did the idea for the characters’ motives come to fruition for you?

When I began writing this novel, I was a year or two younger than Lionel Boone, who at first was the main character of the novel before my radical revision which included the addition of two new main characters. Boone was easy to write since I was aging as he was and noticing certain things about the process: more body aches and pains, going to bed and rising earlier, less appeal and impact as an older college professor, the feeling I was losing my relevancy, etc. With Eris, I based her on a few former students and colleagues who are advocates for women’s rights. She was a lot of fun to write because she is able to verbally defend herself to a lot of offensive male characters and get away with it. And with Cass, my favorite character, I harnessed the theme that Joyce Carol Oates likes to use in her fiction about small town scandals and I blended that with a sense of nihilism that had affected her over the years due to the dynamics of living in a small town.

What kind of research did you do for this novel to ensure you captured the essence of the story’s theme?

I completed a lot of research. First, the characters came naturally to me after having lived in Appalachia for over 15 years. A lot of the mannerisms, the good will, and heartwarming aspects of my characters can be found where I have lived. In addition to visiting the location where the town is based off of, I also included the names of all 120 counties in Kentucky as character names, street names, the names of businesses, etc. I studied the hydraulic fracturing process thoroughly and compiled notes on the region of where the novel takes place. I corresponded with an activist who was very helpful in providing periodicals to examine as well as informing me about the business side of things. He also verified and refuted some of my ideas or scenarios that I had planned. Of course, there were other works of fiction that I read that informed me, such as Strange as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake and Heat and Light by Jennifer Haigh.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

My next novel is already out (September 2023), and it is titled The Law of Devil’s Land. It is a young adult, post-apocalyptic, dystopian work that is the first of a trilogy. I am currently awaiting notification of the publication of the sequel. This novel focuses on a main character (Ghonna Gyle) who is nonbinary and is often singled out and persecuted for this. The societal structure is an extrapolation of current US culture with 3 distinct groups: The Lower Ranks (laborers/impoverished), Civil Servants (rule enforcers who are akin to the upper class), and Overlords (rule makers and elite). In this novel, I create a history and culture that eerily resembles current times while using a competition as the impetus for plot. In this novel, Ghonna must compete and survive in the Imperial Events, a cross between the Olympics, X-Games, and Roman Gladiator Combat to rise from the Lower Ranks into the role of a Civil Servant. I first had this idea in the early 1990s and it has taken nearly 30 years for me to write this novel. So, the fact that this was completed and published is very exciting for me. It is also available through Black Rose Writing.

Author links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/08/07/i-needed-to-continue-the-story/