“I’d just like to be able to write what I love, and share my passion for knowledge, science, and storytelling with the public.”
-Tobey Forney
A member of the Writers’ League since December of 2015, Tobey Forney lives in West University Place, Texas.
Scribe: In what genre(s) do you write?
Tobey Forney: I have written a children’s animated screenplay, a novel about a young woman who intervenes in an afterlife power struggle, and a screenplay about six women who move in to one big house to raise their kids together. My work-in-progress is a novel about a woman whose husband leaps from the World Trade Center on September 11. I have an unfinished manuscript about a girl, a horse, and a Mexican horse whisperer, and another that’s about a woman in her mid-thirties juggling marriage, kids, and career. So I guess you could say that my interests are varied. (I’m self-diagnosed ADD.)
Scribe: What authors would you like to have coffee or a beer with and which beverage?
TF: How many can I pick? And dead or alive? If I could have it all, I’d love to sip a dirty vodka martini while chatting with David Mitchell, Anthony Doerr, Graham Greene, George Elliott, Anthony Marra, Diana Gabaldon, Markus Zusak, Jane Austen, Adam Johnson, Neil Gaiman, and Ayn Rand (in no particular order).
Scribe: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what book would you want to have with you to keep you sane?
TF: It’d have to be something deep and thought-provoking, like Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.
Scribe: What have you learned from your association with the Writers’ League?
TF: I’ve learned that there are many people in my home state who share my passion for writing and who are coming together to provide opportunities for writers. I attended an advanced craft workshop in April put on by the Writers’ League.
Scribe: Where do you see your writing taking you (or you taking it) in the future?
TF: Ideally, I’d win a few prizes (Pulitzer and Nobel come to mind) and have my books made into movies. But really, I’d just like to be able to write what I love, and share my passion for knowledge, science, and storytelling with the public.
Scribe: Here at the Writers’ League, we love sharing book recommendations. What’s one Texas-related book that has come out within the past year that you couldn’t put down?
I loved Friendswood by Rene Steinke, which hit close to home because it’s set in Friendswood, Texas.
Scribe: Is there anything else about you that you would like to share with the world? An opportunity for blatant self-promotion!
When I’m not writing, you can find me practicing ashtanga yoga or driving carpool for my three kids. I’m also a tax attorney, working primarily with non-profits and social hybrid enterprises to help visionaries put their dreams into practice. I’m inspired daily by my friends and writing group members, the talented Chris Cander, David Eagleman, and Sarah Blutt. Together we wrote an original screenplay for a children’s movie called Germs, a love story between a virus and a bacterium in the nose of a six-year-old boy, which has been optioned to Comic Animations and is in pre-production. I have a weakness for researching wacky scientific concepts such as dark energy and string theory, and aspire to one day craft a writing career from exploring hypothetical tangents of what we know about our universe.
