Author Q&A: David Wind

Today we're interviewing David Wind, an international award-winning author.

Wind has published forty-one novels Including science fiction and fantasy, mystery and suspense thrillers, and contemporary Fiction.

He is the president of the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and lives and writes in Boynton Beach.

Two of Wind's indie books (A Better Place To Be, and The Indie Writer’s Handbook) received the B.R.A.G. Medallion for literary excellence, and Born To Magic: Tales of Nevaeh, Vol. I, was awarded the silver medallion from Ireland’s Drunken Druid International Book Awards.  

SADYE: How did you come to see yourself as a writer, and what inspired you to seek publication?

DAVID: I grew up wanting to be a writer: It took thirty-three years to get there and get my first novel published.

As a pre-teen and teenager, I devoured science fiction and mysteries at a ridiculous rate, usually under a blanket with a flashlight.

SADYE: Which of your characters would you most and least like to trade places with?

DAVID: This is a tough one — the character I’d most like to trade places with would either be Solomon Roth from any of the Tales of Nevaeh books, or Ray Hyte, from The Hyte Maneuver.

The one I’d least want to be is CIA agent Kevin Chapin of my espionage thriller, The Sokova Convention — way too much craziness, even for me.

SADYE: What have been the most surprising, rewarding, and challenging parts of your writing career?

DAVID: The most surprising was when Science Fiction Grand Master and Hugo winner Andre Norton invited me to her home, after giving me a cover blurb for Queen of Knights.

The most challenging aspect of writing has always been to keep up not only the quality of my writing, but the originality.

The most rewarding part of my writing is a combination of things (and don’t think this is corny, because it can be construed that way): receiving letters and emails from my readers, telling me how my books affected them, is a huge part because it tells me I’m not alone in what I believe in as a writer.

And, also, moving from being a traditionally published author to an indie author, and having the ability to not just control what I write, but being able to publish my books in the exact way I intend my readers to read them.  

SADYE: What period of history would you most like to travel back to and why?

DAVID: The twelfth century, and the days of Richard the Lion Heart (Richard Coeur de Lion).

So much has been written, both factually and fictionally, about this period in history, and about the historic figures who populated the time period, from Richard to Saladin to Prince John.

And what of Robin Hood? Who was the person who gave the writers the legend of “the Hood”? No one really knows, only that the stories began appearing in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and have persisted into present time.

With so many adventures during this period, who could resist? And which one would I like to meet? ALL OF THEM!

SADYE: What experience in your past or general aspect of your life has most affected your writing?

DAVID: This isn’t a simple question to answer because everything going into the writing process comes from experiences either directly experienced, from a secondhand source, or from the opportunity that comes when you see something and it clicks with the creative part of yourself, and during the following ten or so minutes you sit and work out the entire plot in your mind.

After forty-one novels, I can tell you each one has come from something I either experienced, saw, or learned about from someone close.

But surrounding it all is my perception of the world, and of having been raised by a single mother (my father died when I was young), and this has instilled a slightly different view of a world many consider "normal."

* * *

Learn more about David Wind on his website, where his books can also be purchased; like him on Facebook; and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. 

Know an author you'd like to see featured? Email us with a recommendation!