Question 1

Q1: You worked at NASA for seven years. How did that experience shape you as a person and a storyteller?

Accepted Answer

NASA taught me about teamwork, leadership, and what it means to be part of something larger than yourself. When you're working on the Space Shuttle, including the final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, you understand viscerally that every person on that team matters, that the stakes are real, and that ego can get people killed. Those lessons are baked into ORION at every level. But honestly, it was the years after NASA, working in the tech industry—directing innovation programs, navigating institutional politics, watching how large organizations actually function behind the curtain—that gave me the texture for how ORION operates as an institution. The bureaucracy, the competing agendas, the tension between the mission and the politics. That's not invented. I lived it.

Question 2

Q2: This book started as a comic book. What made you switch to prose?

Accepted Answer

The scope outgrew my capabilities in the medium. When I was a kid, I was drawing panels and splash pages. But over thirty years, the world became too layered, too political, too interior for sequential art to carry it alone. For my storytelling capabilities (in both writing and art), a novel lets me get inside these characters' heads in a way comics can't. You can feel Cynder's doubt. You can sit with Strident's ambition. Prose also gives me the ability to build and craft an intricate and interconnected world more quickly than through a comic. I can drive growth and scale faster in prose—I can flesh out the mythology, the politics, the history in ways that would take years of monthly issues to achieve. That said, I still want to have comics as transmedia to tell other stories in the world. But prose is the engine to get this off the ground.

Question 3

Q3: The book has been compared to V.E. Schwab, George R.R. Martin, and Mass Effect. How do you see those comparisons?

Accepted Answer

They're honest anchors for what the book is doing. Schwab showed that superpowered fiction could be morally complex and literary. Martin proved that ensemble casts with political intrigue could be genuinely epic. Mass Effect demonstrated that a found-family team facing an existential cosmic threat could carry real emotional weight. ORION lives at the intersection of all three, but what I'm most interested in is where those influences combine into something that doesn't exist yet. A grounded, character-driven superhero story with real political stakes and a cosmic mythology behind it, told with the pacing of a thriller. If you love any of those touchstones, you'll find something here, but the combination is its own thing.

Question 4

Q4: What's the ORION universe beyond this first book?

Accepted Answer

It's a full transmedia property. ORION: Heavenfall is the entry point, but there are novellas that explore key events in the timeline. “First Contact,” “Two Suns,” and a second novel, “The Cyber Storm,” is already in progress. Beyond the prose, I've been developing a digital card game, a wiki, and expanded lore content. I’m building this universe to extend across media the same way I consumed stories growing up—through comics, games, novels, and everything in between.

Question 5

Q5: You self-published through your own imprint, Skyfire Press. Why not pursue traditional publishing?

Accepted Answer

Control and speed. This universe has been in my heart and mind for thirty years, and I wasn't willing to hand the keys to someone else's vision for it. Self-publishing through Skyfire Press lets me maintain professional standards—professional editor, professional cover artist, trade-quality production—while retaining full ownership of the IP. Every branding decision, every transmedia extension, every future adaptation stays in my hands.Also, I have a lot of story to tell, and I'm starting this at forty-five. Self-publishing gives me the most control and speed of production for building and fleshing out the world quickly. I don't have two years to wait for a traditional publishing cycle on each book. I have a universe to build, and Skyfire Press lets me build it at the pace the story demands.

Question 6

Q6: The cast is large and diverse. How do you approach writing characters across different identities?

Accepted Answer

With intentionality and with some anxiety, honestly. Most of these characters are not someone I share a self-identity with. So to connect with them, one thing I do is insert a little bit of myself into each of them. Cynder's struggles with following an ideal (his brother) and staying even-keeled, that's me. Strident's ambition and her feelings of being undervalued, that's me. Rapid's desire to prove herself and make her family proud, that's me. Aspen's desire to create a better ORION, Bludgeon's caretaker sensibilities, Breach's belief that he can't, and won't, rise above what he's been…they are all me in some way.I did want a diverse book, so I set out to write a world that looks like the real one. In the real world, the people saving it don't all look the same. But the diversity isn't performative, it's structural. These characters exist because the world they live in is global, and a global world has global people in it.

Question 7

Q7: You speak on AI panels at major conventions and you're also a debut novelist. How do you navigate the tension between those two worlds?

Accepted Answer

I sit right at the intersection, and honestly, it's uncomfortable sometimes. I spent my career in technology and innovation. I understand what AI can do, and I've seen firsthand how it accelerates certain kinds of work. But I'm also a writer who spent thirty years building a universe by hand, word by word. I know what craft costs.The conversation around AI in publishing is broken because it's all-or-nothing. One side says AI is theft and should be banned. The other side says it's inevitable and everyone should get on board. The truth is messier. There are legitimate concerns about training data, about consent, about the economic displacement of artists and writers. And there are also legitimate uses—brainstorming, research, accessibility tools for disabled creators—that get drowned out by the shouting.What I try to bring to those panels is honesty. I'm not going to tell a room full of writers that AI is harmless, because it's not. And I'm not going to pretend I don't use technology in my professional life, because I do. The question isn't whether AI exists because it does. The question is whether we can build frameworks that protect creators while acknowledging reality. That's the conversation I want to have.

Question 8

Q8: What would you tell someone who's been sitting on a creative project for years, afraid to start?

Accepted Answer

I sat on this for thirty years. Thirty. And every year I didn't write it, the story got better because I got better. The fear isn't that you'll start and fail. The fear is that you'll start and discover you're actually good enough, and then you have to follow through. That's the real scary part. Start anyway.

Question 9

Bonus Q1: What do you want a reader to feel when they finish this book?

Accepted Answer

Like they just walked out of a movie they need to talk to someone about. I want the emotional weight to sit with them. I want them to wonder what's going to happen to these characters next. And I want them to immediately want the next book. But beyond that, I want them to immerse themselves in the world. I want them to comb the glossary, create explainer videos, write Wiki entries, crave prequel content. If they close ORION: Heavenfall and feel like they've been somewhere—not just read something—then I did my job.

Question 10

Bonus Q2: You won awards before the book was even professionally edited. What did that validation mean to you?

Accepted Answer

Honestly? It kept me going. The Chanticleer Cygnus First Place came during a period where I was questioning whether the book was ready, whether I was ready. Winning validated what I hoped was true: that the core story works, that the characters land, that the world is compelling. It also told me something important: this book can compete at a high level even before final polish. That gave me confidence to invest fully in the production, including the professional editor, the commissioned cover art, the whole infrastructure of Skyfire Press. If the raw manuscript could win, the finished book is going to be something special.

Question 11

Bonus Q3: What surprised you most about the writing process?

Accepted Answer

How much the characters resisted my plans. I had thirty years of plotting and outlining, and the characters still surprised me on the page. Scenes I thought would go one way went another because the characters had become real enough to assert themselves. The best moments in the book are the ones I didn't plan. They were the ones where I was writing to find out what happened next, just like a reader would.

PRESS & MEDIA
Everything you need to feature ORION: Heavenfall or book an author appearance.

The Book | About the Author | Speaking Topics | Interview Q&A | Awards | Media | Contact

ORION: HEAVENFALL (Book 1)

Sample Interview Q&A

Q1: You worked at NASA for seven years. How did that experience shape you as a person and a storyteller?

Q2: This book started as a comic book. What made you switch to prose?

Q3: The book has been compared to V.E. Schwab, George R.R. Martin, and Mass Effect. How do you see those comparisons?

Q4: What's the ORION universe beyond this first book?

Q5: You self-published through your own imprint, Skyfire Press. Why not pursue traditional publishing?

Q6: The cast is large and diverse. How do you approach writing characters across different identities?

Q7: You speak on AI panels at major conventions and you're also a debut novelist. How do you navigate the tension between those two worlds?

Q8: What would you tell someone who's been sitting on a creative project for years, afraid to start?

Bonus Q1: What do you want a reader to feel when they finish this book?

Bonus Q2: You won awards before the book was even professionally edited. What did that validation mean to you?

Bonus Q3: What surprised you most about the writing process?

PRESS & MEDIA Everything you need to feature ORION: Heavenfall or book an author appearance.

The Book | About the Author | Speaking Topics | Interview Q&A | Awards | Media | Contact

ORION: HEAVENFALL (Book 1)

Sample Interview Q&A

Q1: You worked at NASA for seven years. How did that experience shape you as a person and a storyteller?

Q2: This book started as a comic book. What made you switch to prose?

Q3: The book has been compared to V.E. Schwab, George R.R. Martin, and Mass Effect. How do you see those comparisons?

Q4: What's the ORION universe beyond this first book?

Q5: You self-published through your own imprint, Skyfire Press. Why not pursue traditional publishing?

Q6: The cast is large and diverse. How do you approach writing characters across different identities?

Q7: You speak on AI panels at major conventions and you're also a debut novelist. How do you navigate the tension between those two worlds?

Q8: What would you tell someone who's been sitting on a creative project for years, afraid to start?

Bonus Q1: What do you want a reader to feel when they finish this book?

Bonus Q2: You won awards before the book was even professionally edited. What did that validation mean to you?

Bonus Q3: What surprised you most about the writing process?

PRESS & MEDIA
Everything you need to feature ORION: Heavenfall or book an author appearance.