Wednesday 30 January 2013

#justimagine Author David K Paterson on Fusion and cooking for hungry geeks


My interviewee is David K Paterson. His stories, White Noise and The Removal Man, appeared in Fusion. David rediscovered a love of story-telling in 2007 while taking a creative writing course and since then the words have just been pouring out. He has written several screenplays, novellas and short stories. He has also completed the National Novel Writing Month twice and Script Frenzy three times. His first published short story was featured in My Weekly magazine in February 2009 and a longer short story was selected for an anthology in 2010 but this one is yet to be published so Fusion has beaten it to the tape. David says he is proud to have his second and third published short stories in the Fusion anthology and is looking forward to a productive and enjoyable writing future.




How did it feel to hear that his story would be published in Fusion? David says, ‘I wish I could say I was playing it cool the day that both sets of results were announced, but that would be untrue - I may have permanently damaged my keyboard's F5 key from refreshing the event page. As any creative person knows, there's always that nagging worry that "they're all going to laugh at you", but we have to take the risk, otherwise we never progress. I felt that I had written good stories that entertained me, but to end up with both short-listed was something I never expected.’

David sees it as a definite positive to be in an anthology with established writers. As he puts it, ‘It’s not just that people who know Danuta Reah and Stuart Aken will pick up the anthology and hopefully discover new writers, but it’s also to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and feel that a professional writing career is within reach.’

When recommending a book to pass the time on a long journey, David tells me, ‘The last book I read on a long-haul flight was "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline. I really got into the story, the tale of a down-trodden hero who battles through a massive online game to claim the legacy of the game's designer. Great fun if you're a fan of retro arcade games!’

David is clearly building a fan base after his contribution to Fusion, so what can we expect next from his pen (or keyboard)? He says, ‘I'm working on a non-fiction project with a few friends at the moment. We're producing ALL THE NOMZ!, a cookbook for hungry geeks, with recipes contributed by some of the biggest names in nerd culture.’

It isn’t the answer I expected, but I love the concept, especially when he goes on to say, ‘All proceeds from the book will go to Child's Play Charity, a charity drive set up by the people behind the Penny Arcade web comic, to donate video games, consoles and money to children's hospitals around the world. We hope to publish in May 2013.’ You can follow ALL THE NOMZ on twitter and it also has its own website www.allthenomz.com.  

Find out more about David and his writing on Twitter 
or on his blog

No comments:

Post a Comment