Sean E. Thomas Shares His Writing and Life Journey in Alaska

Alaska’s been my home since on and off since 1955.  I grew up mostly in Eagle River.

In minutes, one can drive north or south of there and be surrounded by pristine wilderness with clear unpolluted lakes, rivers and creeks loaded with fish and green forests flush with wild game.

The state is rich in history, minerals and oil, diverse native cultures and lots of mystery—missing planes, missing people and very few roads.  

This wilderness is great inspiration for Mystery novels as there are many places to hide a body.

In truth, Alaska has had several serial killers. One was baker and businessman Robert Hansen who kidnapped prostitutes, held them captive, tortured and sexually assaulted them, then took them to the Alaskan bush to hunt them down.  Nicholas Cage came to Alaska this last fall and filmed a movie, Frozen Ground, based on Robert Hansen.  It’ll be out later this year.

My writing experience started in grade school. I spent more time reading novels instead of concentrating on my schoolwork. My favorite authors were Jack London and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  In the seventh grade, I wrote my first story based on a plane crashing in the wilderness.  My teacher liked it so much she had me read it in front of the class.  I was so embarrassed it killed my inspiration to write paving the way for high school where I excelled scholastically.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAByFUI9B2Q&feature=youtu.be

I attended Alaska Methodist University, majoring in chemistry with a minor in mathematics. 

At the University of Idaho graduate school, I went into organic chemistry and enrolled in ROTC for the deferment.  ROTC leadership requested I take over as the editor of the Vandal Review, a ROTC newspaper.  It was there I met and married the love of my life, Doris.  We’ve been married for 40

years.  We have one son, Robert, who is a computer genius working for the Alaska Railroad.  My son built and maintains my website.

I seriously start writing again in 1990.  

At that time, I was records/copy machine manager for the Army in Alaska and wrote an article on copy machine management.  It was accepted and published in their International Quarterly.  

The writing bug bit me but I really wanted to write fiction.  I picked a writing partner, a former coworker of Aleut heritage.  She wrote children’s books while I wrote a science fiction detective novel.  We joined a local writer’s group that met weekly.  After a couple meetings, my partner quit.  She said the members were the meanest, most vindictive people she’d ever met and quit writing.  I continued on with the group, accepting their harsh criticism.  I found with all the editing on other

member’s works, there was little time for my own novel. I enrolled in creative writing courses, improved on my style and eventually moved forward.

 

I took a screen-writing course at the University of Alaska Anchorage taught by Kim Rich. Through her course, I finally understood how stories were put together following the Greek tradition.  By then, I had four books in the hopper and my Alaska State Trooper mystery novels, Dark Project, Dark Soul and Dark Gold, were published.  My third mystery, actually more a horror novel, Dark Shaman, was published in 2003. Whiskey Creek Press, my current publisher, picked these four novels for conversion to e-format.  Since these were my earlier works, I revised, streamlined and punched up the prose and dialog before submission. 

I had been diagnosed and was living with congestive heart failure with atrial fibrillation and was on a handful of medicines that on any given day had a 14% chance of killing me.  My congestive heart failure reversed itself, but the irregular heartbeat remained. Complications arose resulting in surgery where I was on the operating table for nine hours, and during that time the doctors cardioverted me eight times—that’s being hit by the electrical paddles 16 times—stopping and starting my heart.

As a result of the cardioversions, I lost eight months of short-term memory and my ability to write.

After I had gotten my energy back, when I looked down at the computer screen, it looked like Sergeant Snorkel from Beatle Bailey cussing.  I couldn’t string sentences together.  It took three years to get back my writing abilities.  

In 2006, I retired. Around that time, I started to have a reoccurring dream about a Roman Legion expedition to Qin (China) that had been blown off course, went up the Yukon and merged with Athabascans. I had to get the story down on paper to stop the nightmares. So Robert Sable, my Alaska State Trooper, emerged again in a new, different mystery novel, Lost Legion. 

Other Robert Sable Mystery novels quickly followed: you can see the long list on my site www.seanethomas.com  There you’ll find all my work including the many award winners with synopsis. 

My next release, The Frozen Treasure, will be out from Whiskey Creek Press in June 2013.

 I am currently working on a new novel in the series with the working title, Blood on the Moon--a multi-millionaire has upped the winner’s prize for this year’s Iditarod race to $5 million.  Last year’s champion is the first to die along with all his dogs.

Stalker, Alaska Dutchman and Deadly Rites were submitted to Alaska Professional Communicators contest.  Alaskan Dutchman--the Official Second Place Winner and all three novels received rave reviews by the judges! 

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(Pictures provided by Author)