Concerning inspirations and influences that shape my work.
Authors are often encouraged to read voraciously, but it isn't just zeal that we are told to adopt: We are called to be omnivores. If a text is encountered along the road, we are not to question if we are hungry or whether we fancy the flavor, it us our duty to snatch it up in our jaws and guzzle it down, bones and all. But even the Eaters of All shouldn't just be mindless consumers.
What makes a literary form worthy of vocational pursuit? What is it about fantasy and fantasy epics in particular that fires the imagination and the desire to create? Yes, there is the aesthetic and the enchantment, but those are all bound up in the grand form itself. It is an art capable of symphonic width and breadth as well as a profound height and depth of register.
Cooperative story-telling games are the apex of group entertainments. That is a conviction of mine that no amount of persuasion has ever been able to shake. And Dungeons and Dragons is the father of them all. It’s been a major influence on my storytelling all the way back to childhood...