Interview with James Bates
By: Kevin 'Myth Master' Adams
You ever just wake up and want to torture the hell out of an innocent old man?
No?
Just me?
Oh, Ok.
Here's my next victim!! YAY!
Jim has always wanted to be a writer, he wrote his first story when he was in the 4th grade but thought it was boring so he threw it away. Flash forward fifty plus years to 2011, by then he'd been married and had children and grandchildren. He'd had a long career in sales and technical training for a large manufacturing company, He'd even owned a small business. While helping to care for the last days of a loved one, he realized that life was passing him by and he'd better get going if he wanted to fulfill his dream so the next day he started writing and hasn't stopped since.
He began by writing a poem a day for a year, then a haiku a day for a year after that a four-line stanza a day for a year and finally a six-line rhymed verse a day for a year.
In 2015 he started writing short stories, he took an online writing class and met a successful author who became his mentor. She suggested he write the best possible stories he could and post them on a blog, he followed her advice and continued working and honing his craft.
He began submitting stories in early 2018 and in March his first short story was featured on CafeLit so now he was off and running. Since then 150 stories have appeared in online publications such as CafeLit and Spillwords, where he was voted Author of the Month for December 2019, and in print anthologies, such as the Best of CafeLit 8 and Nativity through Bridgehouse Publishing, and the Gleam, Portal and Glamour anthology's through Clarendon House Publishing.
He also reads his stories for broadcast onTalking Stories Radio.
In September 2020, Resilience, his first collection of short stories, will be published through Bridgehouse Publishing.
All of his stories appear on his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com.
He continues to write every day from his home in the small town of Long Lake, Minnesota, and prefers to be published as Jim Bates. He is happy. He has achieved his dream.
Myth Master: ME.
Let's get down to business, shall we?
Yours in torture,
MM ;)
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