SA MONTHLY BOOK CLUB: JOHN ROBERT MACK

What better time, than in quarantine, to meet yet another talented local author? John Robert Mack is a local creative and multi-talented individual. In the coming months we are going to host another "buddy-read" online (depending on what happens with COVID-19.) Because of the virus, our plans to sit and discuss with the last featured author were canceled. We encourage everyone needing something to do to read the book featured on this link and join this community book club! Where you can meet the authors to discuss their work!

LINK TO BOOK "The Gospel of John." 

http://johnrobertmack.com/thirdtestament/?fbclid=IwAR2Kcg19MUO1HAGEdFYhbTHvG7RbofEIv4X9DBFnls-_RaYJm61ZFLZPN9s

SAM: What started your writing journey? Have you always aspired to be a writer, or was there a precipitating incident?

I have been a writer literally longer than I can remember. In college I found a short story among my mom’s things called, “How I Learned to Vanish.” I’d written it in third grade and have no memory of writing it. I think I started writing because after a certain point it was no longer “cool” to play make-believe games and create spaceships out of cardboard boxes with your friends. Then I discovered Tolkien, and here was this old man who created entire worlds and languages about elves and dwarves. I realized that I could keep playing make-believe as long as I called it “writing a novel.”

SAM: What are your favorite topics to write about?

On the one hand, I love anything that these days is called “speculative fiction.” That includes sci fi, steampunk, supernatural, apocalyptic, fantasy, etc. I love creating unusual worlds and trying to make sense of them. One common purpose of this kind of fiction is to discuss contemporary problems and issues in a completely different world to shine light on the issue without sounding pedantic.

I am very interested in exploring what today is called “toxic masculinity.” But not in any kind of annoying way. For instance, the Tango trilogy has a romance and a love triangle, and lots of dancing and ghosts… but the real heart of it is Ethan’s relationship with his father. How do father and son navigate life as Ethan goes from self-centered teen to self-sacrificing adult hero? The heroine of A Consequence of Folly is a woman who is secretly the head of a massive movement to free slaves, but she has to hire a man to pretend to be the hero because she knows no one will take a woman seriously in that role. Meanwhile, the reader gets to have fun watching their adventures when aliens attack. I also write a lot about what it means to be family.

SAM: What are your goals as a writer?

I have to answer this two ways. Number one, my goal has always been to make people think. Keep in mind, no one is going to listen to a writer that isn’t entertaining, so that goal is sort of like my focus as a teacher: trick them into thinking. Entertain the reader so much they hear your message without even realizing it.

The second answer is the practical one. I want to earn enough online that I can live wherever I want and pretty much spend my days traveling from one part of my family to another, having adventures worth writing about.

SAM: Are you still working on projects? What is your next book about?

Always. I have sequels or companion novels to every book on Amazon in the works. Two main projects right now are a Post-Apocalyptic novel about King Arthur and Merlin, and a superhero novel. The superhero novel is currently under consideration by a publisher, so I’m also hard at work on a sequel to that in case they decide pick up book one. Fingers crossed on that one because this particular publisher seems like a perfect fit. It would definitely be the perfect next step. That book, Call Me Angel, is about a young man who is both telekinetic and telepathic. He can read minds and move things around.

This is the cover and jacket back I had designed for self-publication. This is for you for fun… please don’t publish these images for fear of annoying the potential publisher. You can use the blurb if you like.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

JOHN ROBERT MACK: 

I’ve been writing stories since the third grade and completed my first “novel” in the fourth. I’ve been taking photos of people since I found my mom’s old “Brownie” camera around the same time, and I’ve been dancing since my friend Vicky and I first choreographed “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” and had a dance-off making my sister the judge.  Then Lisa (my sister) would buy these little 79 cent books: “How to do the Hustle” and “How to do the Bus Stop.” Yep. That was about fourth grade, too. Busy year.

I am so glad video games weren’t invented until I was in high school!

I took a photography class in junior high, but other than that, I just loved taking photos of people. Everyone has a story, and the photos I take have always been meant to tell that story.

I studied writing and theater in college, where I published a short story in the UW-Milwaukee literary journal. I also wrote and produced my first full-length play Whatever Happened… to all the happy endings? under the tutelage of Fred Gaines at Lawrence University and wrote my first “real” novel under the tutelage of Shiela Cunningham based on a semester I’d spent in London.

I had several plays produced in Wisconsin, including Talking with Jacob, which garnered statewide recognition and the cover of several statewide periodicals. After College, I started directing and producing plays, where I realized most of the choreographers in Appleton, WI kind of sucked, so I started dance training.

I also produced my own adaptation of the Ray Bradbury story, “The Better Part of Wisdom” with Mr. Bradbury’s approval and input. Yep. That was kind of a high point! I wrote a column for two years in The Dancer’s Guide as well as training manuals for several dance studios in Texas. My teaching ability earned me two articles in Quality in Action, a worldwide educational magazine. More recently, I wrote a column for Out in SA. Currently, I am a writer and photographer for SA Monthly magazine and have written the cover article three months running. This month, I was also published in Woman.

For the past twenty years, I’ve worked as a dance teacher, choreographed musicals like West Side Story and helped create and coach the original Radio Disney dance team in San Antonio, TX.

More recently, I lived in Virginia on sabbatical to focus on my writing, where I taught writing workshops for both the Hampton Roads Writers and the Muse. I also taught a number of workshops for the Hampton Roads Writers conference of 2016. I have written a total of 16 novels and self-published 9 of them so far. I am now trying to find an audience for the books.

In the meantime, I teach dance and produce dance performances like Share the Beat, which most recently brought together 50 dancers from 15 different organizations.