John Yearwood has been a member of the Writers’ League for almost two years and will be attending the Agents & Editors Conference in June. He calls Austin home.
Scribe: In what genre(s) do you write?
John Yearwood: Cross-over literary/action adventure/romance/time travel.
Scribe: What authors would you like to have coffee or a beer with and which beverage?
JY: Frothy ale with Geoffrey Chaucer, beer with Dylan Thomas, gin with Hemingway, Coke Zero with Neil Gaiman, Houndstooth espresso with Janet Evanovich and Tony Hillerman, a well-aged Bordeaux with John Donne (and it would be, at about four centuries old), and absinthe with David Mitchell. Mostly, though, I’d like to sit in with the Oxford Inklings, listening to J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Dorothy Sayers, discuss the literary world and drinking a glass of porter quietly while keeping my mouth shut.
Scribe: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what book would you want to have with you to keep you sane?
JY: I’d rather have a boundless supply of paper and pencils, but I’d probably take my well-worn Norton Anthology of Poetry.
Scribe: What have you learned from your association with the Writers’ League?
JY: There’s a lot more to writing than writing, e.g., blatant self-promotion.
Scribe: Where do you see your writing taking you (or you taking it) in the future?
JY: I hope it takes me to deeper self-knowledge and greater empathy with others. I expect it will embroil me in controversy, also, since I challenge a whole lot of stereotypes (against my will). I’m learning that, while I must take responsibility for my writing, it is not I who writes but some djinn without a face or scent, who I channel from his or her own dark world.
Scribe: Is there anything else about you that you would like to share with the world?
JY: I’m ready to send out my first novel, The Icarus Jump, to agents. The sequel, The City and the Gate, is about a third of the way done and the final novel in the trilogy, The Gender of Fire, is being drafted. The series deals with gender conflicts by positing a world whose central governing ethos is “whatever is best for women and children.” I assume that the human species must have held that tenet at some early point in its development; hence my time travel.
