Donovan’s Revolution follows a former seminary student turned itinerant Catholic worker who is sent to Haiti by the Vatican, and he winds up entrenched in the revolution there. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Most of my writing is set somewhere in America. Usually the Midwest. Although I was born in the South – Arkansas — I grew up in Illinois and now live in Michigan. I ran across something about the Haitian Revolution of the 1980s and it intrigued me. It was an opportunity to do something different and soon I began to imagine a character – Donovan – and what his conflicts might be as an outsider to Haiti, and the story took off. Donovan and Gilles come from very different backgrounds and yet they slowly establish a friendship based on mutual friendship and humor.

What starts out as another assignment from the Vatican for Donovan turns into a life-altering experience. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

I liked the idea of someone like Donovan, who had decided priesthood wasn’t for him, to nonetheless be thrust into an exotic revolution as a reluctant representative of the Vatican. It sets him up to either stay mired in uncertainty or to grow and find himself. Pairing Gilles with Donovan enables Gilles to re-discover humor and hope for people. The unlikely pairing, which at first is manipulative by Gilles, becomes a true friendship.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I don’t start writing with themes in mind – not consciously in mind, that is. My subconscious likely works on that. At first, I likely have just a character and an awareness of that person’s conflict, and a setting. But that’s enough for me to get going and to learn the story as it unfolds. Like with readers, it’s a journey of discovery for me, too. So, I wasn’t trying to impose a theme like faith/religion, for example. Making Donovan an employee of the Vatican was useful in putting him into action with the cynical, world-weary Gilles.

What is the next book that you are working on and when can your fans expect it to be out?

My novella Busted Flat, winner of a Literary Titan Gold Award, came out in early November 2024 from Blue Cedar Press. Forthcoming for February 2025 from Type Eighteen Books – Night Hawks, a novella. I’ve lately been writing new stories and completed a collection, The Space Between Now and Then, and I’m looking for a publisher. I also recently completed a novel, I Just Don’t Get Karaoke, and two novellas, The King of Kalamazoo and Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. Are you listening, publishers?

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