Everyone’s Story welcomes its
new guest, author Sean E. Thomas. Known on social media sites as the Alaskan
Novelist, Sean’s story is truly inspirational. Sean refused to
permit a health problem deter him from writing, and achieved the publication of his mystery novels after
retiring from years of civil service work. And, I must admit: his living in
Alaska has definitely seized my attention!
How
Alaska And A Health Scare Shaped My Writing by Sean E. Thomas
Alaska’s been my home since on
and off since 1955 and I grew up mostly in Eagle River, just north of
Anchorage. In a few minutes, one can drive north or south of Anchorage/Eagle
River and be surrounded by pristine wilderness with clear unpolluted lakes,
rivers, and creeks loaded with fish and surrounded by green forests flush with
wild game.
The state is rich in history,
minerals and oil, diverse native cultures, and lots of mystery—missing planes,
missing people and very few roads. For a serial killer, there are many places
to hide a body. Alaska has had several serial killers. One was baker and
businessman Robert Hansen, who kidnapped prostitutes, held them captive, tortured, and sexually assaulted them, then took
them to the Alaskan bush and to hunt them down. Nicholas Cage came to
Alaska this last fall and filmed a movie, On
Frozen Ground, based on Robert Hansen.
In grade school, I was an
average student. I spent more time reading novels instead of concentrating on
my schoolwork and polished off a book a night. My favorite authors were Jack
London and Edgar Rice Burroughs. At 13, in the seventh grade, I wrote my first
story based on a plane crashing in the wilderness and the passenger’s survival.
My teacher liked it so much she had me read it in front of the class. I was so
embarrassed it killed my inspiration to write. In high school I buckled down and excelled scholastically in
high school. I attended Alaska Methodist University, majoring in chemistry and
minoring in mathematics. At the
University of Idaho graduate school, I went into organic chemistry and enrolled
in ROTC for the deferment. ROTC leadership requested I take over as the editor
of the Vandal Review, a ROTC newspaper. I didn’t seriously start again until
1990. At that time I was
records/copy machine manager for the Army in Alaska and wrote an article and
submitted it to ARMA. It was accepted and published. Shortly after, I stepped
up to chief of the administrative services division. Later I became a manpower
manager and financial analyst until I retired in 2006.
The writing bug had bit me, but
I really wanted to write fiction. I picked a writing partner, a former coworker
of Aleut heritage. She wrote children’s books while I wrote a science fiction
detective novel. We joined a local writer’s group that met weekly and everyone
submitted 10 pages a week for review. After a couple meetings, my partner quit.
She said the members were the meanest, most vindictive people she’d ever met
and quit writing. I continued on with the group, accepting their harsh
criticism. But, I found with all the editing on other member’s works, there was
little time to work on my own novel and took creative writing courses. My
writing kept improving. I outgrew my writer’s group and moved on without them.
In 1998, I took a screen-writing
course at the University of Alaska Anchorage taught by Kim Rich. Kim had
written numerous screenplays and a book, Johnny’s
Girl, about her life with her father, an Anchorage Mafioso. Through her
course, I finally understood how stories were put together following the Greek
tradition. I had four books in the hopper and in 2002 and 2003 my Alaska State
Trooper mystery novels, Dark Project,
Dark Soul and Dark Gold, were
published by Infinity. My third mystery, actually more a horror novel, Dark Shaman, was published in 2003 by
Trafford, a Canadian press (now an American press).
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From 1998 through 2003, I had
been diagnosed and was living with congestive heart failure with atrial
fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat). I was on a handful of medicines that on
any given day had a 14% chance of killing me. My congestive heart failure
reversed itself, but the irregular heartbeat remained. Several of the drugs
that had helped keep my heart in sync failed. So, doctors at the Alaska Heart
Institute performed ablation therapy. That’s where a laser is used to cause a
scar that blocks the path of the irregular signals. I was on the operating
table for nine hours, and during that time the doctors cardioverted me eight
times—that’s being hit by the electrical paddles 16 times—stopping and starting
my heart.
As a result of the
cardioversions I lost eight months of short-term memory and my ability to
write. I found I had gotten my energy back, but when I looked down at the
computer screen, it looked like gobbledygook, like Sergeant Snorkel from Beatle
Bailey cussing. I couldn’t string sentences together and it took three years to
get back my writing abilities. In 2006, I retired from civil service as a
management/financial analyst with 33 years, 25 years of civil service, plus
eight years of military service I had bought back.
Around that time, I started to
have a dream, a nightmare about a Roman Legion expedition to Qin (China) that
had been blown off course, went up the Yukon, and merged with Athabascans. Tons
of gold were hidden with their ancient weapons and Roman armor. I had to get the story down on paper to
stop the nightmares. So Robert Sable, my Alaska State Trooper, emerged again in
a new, different mystery novel, Lost Legion. Other Robert Sable Mystery novels
quickly followed: Stalker, Silent Killer, Alaska Dutchman, Deadly Rites
and Frozen Treasure. Lost Legion,
Silent Killer, Stalker were picked up
in 2010 and published in August/October 2011 and May 2012 respectively. The other three will be out from
Whiskey Creek Press in September and November 2012 and spring 2013. I submitted
Lost Legion to the Alaska
Professional Communicators annual contest and won an award. I am currently
working on a new novel in the series, Blood on the Moon (tentative title). Synopses
of my novel can be found at my website
and blog.
Author Bio:
A
longtime Alaska resident with a Native American-Finnish heritage, Sean E.
Thomas graduated in 1970 from Alaska Methodist University with a bachelor of
arts in chemistry. He attended graduate
school at the University of Idaho for two years studying organic chemistry,
then served eight years as an Army officer, working with missiles and laser
weapon systems. He later went into
federal service, working in different endeavors, and retired in 2006. He published four novels between 2002 and
2003. After recovering from
congestive heart failure, he started writing again. His three newest novels were
published fall 2011 through spring 2012.
An avid boater, he has been a Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteer for more
than 35
years,
teaching boating safety and supporting search and rescue programs. Member: Sisters
in Crime (SinC), Pacific Northwest Writers Assoc, Alaska Professional
Communicators, National Federation of Presswoment (NFPW), Alaska 49 Writers, Association
of Alaskan Writers and Alaska Writers Guild.
Links:
Website: http://www.seanethomas.com
Twitter: AlaskanNovelist Sean E Thomas (Over 12,900 Followers)
Amazon Authors Central
Facebook: Sean E Thomas
google blogspot: http://alaskannovelist.blogspot.com/ (Over 200 followers)
http://alaskannovelist.wordpress.com/
Tumblr: Alaskan Novelist
Book Buzzr: http://www.freado.com/users/28782/sean-e-thomas
Member: SinC, Pacific Northwest Writers Assoc, Alaska Professional
Communicators, NFPW, Alaska 49 Writers, Alaska Writers’ Guild.
Alaska Association of Authors, The Alaskan Writer’s Directory http://alaskanwritersdirectory.com/index.shtmlhttp://alaskannovelist.blogspot.com/http://alaskannovelist.wordpress.com/http://alaskannovelist.wordpress.com/
