“[W]riting is a socially-acceptable outlet for the voices in your head.” —Charles Petrie
A member of the Writers’ League since 2026, Charles lives in the Elgin, TX area.
Scribe: Welcome, writer! Tell us — what do you write?
Charles Petrie: I suppose speculative fiction, though it’s hard to put my first book in a genre, as it starts out with only a small change in our world in 2021 and is otherwise fact-based. But then that change leads to a disaster, so I probably fall into the category of post-apocalyptic science fiction. That’s what Amazon thinks anyway.
Scribe: If you could choose one author to blurb your book, who would it be, and what would you want it to say?
CP: Peter Heller – “Intense but evocative post-apocalyptic fiction with real characters.”
Scribe: You have one book you’re allowed to push onto all of your friends, and they’re forced to read it to remain your friend — which one would you choose?
CP: West with the Night by Beryl Markham. It’s a brilliant book by a fascinating, almost unbelievable human. She wasn’t a nice person. But damn, she was something else. And Hemingway said after reading this, her first book, that she could write rings around him and other writers of the age. Just read her first chapter and despair of even aspiring to her level of description, much less her actual accomplishments.
Scribe: Tell us your WLT story.
CP: There is no story – I just found the WLT by exploring the Internet for local writer resources.
Scribe: Where do you see your writing taking you (or you taking it) in the future?
CP: I am an accidental novelist. I didn’t expect to write a full novel. And didn’t expect to be writing a sequel. The characters have taken over, so I don’t know where this goes. I just work here.
Scribe: Here at the WLT, we love sharing book recommendations. What’s one book that has come out within the past few years that you couldn’t put down? (Bonus points if the book is Texas related!)
CP: Nothing in the past year. I’ve gotten picky. The last book I really loved was The Searcher by Tana French from 2020. This is really fine and sly story-telling. I’ll read anything by James S. A. Corey, so I’m waiting on their 2026 book. The last set of books I was really amazed by was Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle because I love learning things. Going way back, I have several times reread the Faith, Hope, and Charity trilogy (1994–1996) by Len Deighton. But that is probably because I love Berlin.
Scribe: Is there anything else about you that you would like to share with the world? An opportunity for blatant self-promotion!
CP: I am a retired Stanford scientist. I’ve written hundreds of non-fiction publications. I came close to a novel simply by writing about my off-grid adventures in Ten Years Off-Grid. But that was still an engineering book. Now that I’ve fallen into being a novelist with Dark Texas, I understand that writing is a socially-acceptable outlet for the voices in your head. I just hope that my friends don’t abandon me when they read those voices. It’s not my fault. I’m just reporting an alternative future that nearly happened.
Scribe: Let us know any social media handles you have!