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Different Walks of Life
The Hunting of the Snark reimagines Lewis Carroll’s famously surreal 1876 poem as a vibrant graphic novel adventure. What inspired you to adapt this classic work?
I fell in love with the poem after discovering it fairly late in life, in a collection of Lewis Carroll poems. The relationships, the world, and the transformations the characters went through during the hunt resonated deeply with me. As I continued to reread and repeat it, the world started to form in my imagination, and I eventually felt compelled to get it out of my mind and on paper.
How did you approach remaining faithful to Carroll’s language while creating a fresh visual interpretation for modern readers?
It was really important to have a crew drawn from many different walks of life for the adventure. Lewis Carroll did this in the original version with the variety of professions. For modern readers, I thought it was necessary to expand on that with a broader range of ages, genders, and ethnicities across the crew so the book could explore the Snarks we hunt today, and how our backgrounds shape the hunt. Beyond that, it was surprisingly easy to stick with Carroll’s original language; changing the pronouns fit naturally into the verse and—if anything—provided an opportunity to deepen the identity of each character.
The crew is wonderfully eccentric, with occupations that are oddly specific and often hilariously impractical. Which character was the most fun to reinterpret visually?
The visual basis for the “frenemies” relationship between Baker and Broker was really interesting to build and see come to life. The visual contrasts between their styles, attitudes, and values came together in wonderful and surprising ways—for example, both incorporate red, but with very different levels of formality.
What conversations do you hope readers have after reaching the final page?
What do a Snark and a Boojum represent, and what does it mean to catch one (or the other)?
Is this a comedy, tragedy, or something else entirely?
And, of course, which crew member are you most like?
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The story follows the Bellman and his eclectic crew—a group brought together by only a common restlessness—as they embark on their hunt in a strange land, which appears to be just the place to find the elusive Snark. But as they travel deeper into this distorted world, their efforts become increasingly fragmented and they find far more than Snarks awaiting them.
Told through a series of vignettes and side quests, the tale unfolds like a riddle. Just like each character’s ambitions, each Fit is self-contained but laced with visual clues that echo and connect the crew’s experiences across the work.
Each walk of life faces unique trials on their path, and the hunt always yields a discovery—though never the one that was sought.
Richly layered with hints, metaphor, and hidden references, The Hunting of the Snark is both a tribute and a transformation of Lewis Carroll’s chaotically brilliant poem; presenting a surreal and beautiful journey about identity, longing, and the price of obsession while finding purpose amongst the nonsense of life.
Daily Sacrifices
The Debt of Free Men follows a young Basque soldier through Napoleon’s final campaigns as romantic ideas about warfare give way to its physical reality. Why did you choose a young Basque seminarian as the character through whom readers experience these events?
I’ve had a lifelong fascination with Napoleon as a historical figure, so when I decided to write my own novel set during this era, weaving in my Basque heritage felt like a natural choice. The seminary aspect comes from a deeply personal place as well—it was directly inspired by stories my father told me about growing up in the Basque Country. Placing a seminarian on the front lines allowed me to explore a profound internal friction.
What parts of Jean-Pierre’s identity remain intact despite everything he experiences during the campaigns, and how does his religious background influence the way he thinks about killing, duty, and responsibility?
Even when forced through the crucible of war, Jean-Pierre’s faith and his deep commitment to his loved ones and friends remain the bedrock of who he is. That isn’t to say his faith goes untested—he questions it repeatedly as he witnesses the horrors of war. Balancing the strict moral tenets against the violent demands of military duty creates a heavy psychological burden. Ultimately, it is his loyalty to the people he loves that acts as his anchor. While his religious framework forces him to wrestle with the gravity of killing and responsibility, his devotion to his brothers-in-arms and family gives him the strength to endure and, eventually, reconcile the choices he made.
What interested you about contrasting an enormous historical victory with the personal costs experienced by the people who helped achieve it?
As a history enthusiast, I’ve always been drawn to grand strategy, sweeping troop movements, and the high-level politics that shape empires. But as a former infantryman, my connection to history is rooted in the ground level. I know what it means to be the person living through the mud, noise, and confusion of the moment. History textbooks often celebrate victories in broad, triumphant strokes, but those grand outcomes are paid for in the daily sacrifices of individual soldiers. I wanted to tell the story from the dust-level perspective—where victory isn’t measured in lost territory or glory, but in the human cost borne by those who fought.
When readers finish The Debt of Free Men, what do you hope stays with them about freedom, sacrifice, loyalty, and the ordinary people who carry the consequences of history?
While I certainly had my own intentions and emotional goals while writing, I believe that once a book is in a reader’s hands, the experience belongs to them. We all view things through the lens of our own lived experiences, values, and perspectives. Two people can read the exact same ending and walk away with entirely different emotional truths. My hope is simply that the story prompts readers to look past the grand monuments of history and reflect on the quiet, ordinary people who actually carried its weight—whatever that reflection ultimately means to each individual reader.
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But first he must take the leap from boy to man as he seeks adventure and glory. He must risk his father’s wrath as his desires lead him away from the seminary where he has spent the past two years.
He may soon come to regret what he has wished for. A soldier’s life is not what he imagined, but now he is caught in the current of history, and he has no choice but to be swept along. Little does he, or anyone else, know how his actions will be the stone that ever so slightly changes the world and the course of history.
Not In This World
Not in This World, by Jane Scott Stuart with Elaine Flowers, is a sweeping historical fiction novel that begins in segregated 1930s Kentucky and follows Paul Carew, a young Black man whose gentleness, creativity, love of beautiful things, and complicated sense of identity set him on a path far beyond the community known as the Kingdom. Paul cooks, sews, sings, dances, tends flowers, and finds joy in dressing in women’s clothes, all while growing up under the frightening authority of his preacher father, Elijah. The novel establishes its emotional stakes early, then widens into a story about family, race, gender, friendship, survival, and the search for a place where a person can live more freely. The authors describe the book as fiction based on true accounts, and that connection to real experience gives this Southern historical fiction a particularly intimate quality.
Some of the book’s most affecting chapters belong to Paul and Moses, childhood friends whose bond feels as natural as breathing. Their lives also reveal how dangerous Jim Crow Kentucky can be, especially after Moses becomes entangled with Kenneth Baynor and is charged with his murder. The consequences are devastating, and Moses’s fate changes Paul permanently. From there, the story expands without losing its personal focus. Paul becomes part of the Jackson household and, eventually, the devoted caregiver to young Jane, who calls him Paw-Paw and attaches herself to him with complete trust. Their relationship grows into the heart of the novel. It’s a form of chosen family that crosses race, class, age, and social expectations, and the affection between them gives the heavier sections of this coming-of-age historical fiction real warmth. Moses’s death, meanwhile, remains present in Paul’s life instead of becoming a plot point he simply leaves behind.
The move across the Atlantic gives Not in This World another dimension. Paul travels with Jane and her family to England and Ireland, where everyday experiences force him to reconsider assumptions that American segregation had taught him were permanent. Later, with World War II underway, he joins the Royal Air Force and grows from a gifted domestic worker who has spent much of his life serving others into a confident serviceman whose courage earns recognition. These sections make the novel compelling World War II historical fiction, but Paul’s inner life remains just as important as military events. His attraction to men, his pleasure in feminine clothes and makeup, and his private negotiations with masculinity are woven throughout his journey, giving the book a place within LGBTQ+ historical fiction as well. The contrast becomes especially sharp when Paul returns to Kentucky in uniform after serving overseas and discovers that military achievement hasn’t erased the rules governing where a Black man can sit, eat, or watch a movie.
What I liked most is the way the novel brings Paul’s public and private selves together through Jane. In the final chapter, she discovers him in a yellow silk dress, makeup, earrings, and perfume, dancing before his mirror. Paul is terrified that the secret he’s guarded for years has finally been exposed. Jane’s response is immediate delight: she recognizes the person she already loves. It’s a beautifully chosen ending because it gathers so many of the novel’s threads into one small room: the frightened boy once brutalized for putting on a dress, the man who has survived racism and war, the caregiver who has given Jane unconditional love, and the child who returns that love without hesitation. That moment captures what makes Not in This World memorable as historical fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction, and a personal story of chosen family. It’s a novel about being seen fully by another person and discovering that love can make room for every part of you.
Pages: 376 | ISBN : 978-1736458334
Somewhere Else
Alan McKee’s Somewhere Else is a literary speculative novel with the steady pull of psychological horror. Joe Patterson, a sixty-six-year-old history professor, discovers that touching certain artifacts lets him enter the experiences attached to them. He witnesses Jefferson and Franklin shaping the Declaration of Independence, Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon, Van Gogh painting The Starry Night, and the Wright brothers taking flight. These encounters feel intensely physical, complete with smells, emotions, and borrowed memories. They also awaken a dark figure that seems to feed on moments of human transcendence. What begins as a historian’s dream soon develops the rhythm of an addiction, with every extraordinary encounter making Joe’s present life seem a little dimmer.
The historical sequences are the book’s showpieces, and McKee writes them with warmth and sensory detail. His version of Van Gogh experiences color as sound and feeling, while Edison’s successful light bulb matters because it will allow an imagined child to finish reading after dark. These scenes reveal the novel’s generous view of achievement: history is made by vulnerable people who don’t yet know how their work will endure. McKee occasionally repeats phrases about consciousness, infinity, and transcendence more often than their meaning requires, but the recurring language also reflects Joe’s narrowing mind. His intellectual curiosity gradually hardens into a private creed, one that can justify each new deception and disappearance.
The novel becomes especially affecting when it returns to Margaret, Joe’s wife of forty-five years. Her chapters give ordinary life its own weight through coffee, paintings, family dinners, missed calls, and the familiar sounds of another person moving through the house. She understands Joe’s behavior as a wife watching a husband become less honest, less reachable, and less interested in the life they built. That perspective keeps the supernatural plot emotionally credible. Joe’s transformation isn’t treated as a simple fall from grace. He recognizes the value of Margaret, their son, and their granddaughter, then knowingly chooses something else. The ending lands because it preserves that uncomfortable truth, while the epilogue follows Margaret toward a hard-earned freedom from carrying his choice forever.
Readers of Stephen King’s 11/22/63 will recognize the fascination with entering history and the conflict between a monumental mission and an intimate human life. Both books treat the past as a seductive place that can rearrange a person’s loyalties, though McKee approaches that idea through concentrated visions. His strongest contribution is the question beneath Joe’s obsession: if transcendence asks us to surrender the relationships that make us human, what exactly have we transcended? Somewhere Else answers through Margaret’s paintings and memories, finding vast meaning inside finite moments. It’s a haunting first novel about history, compulsion, and the danger of valuing cosmic significance more than the person sitting beside you at breakfast.
Pages: 177 | ASIN : B0HCDR75Q2
A Healthy Release
Poems For the Military Veteran, the American Worker, and the American Spirit celebrates the veterans, workers, families, freedoms, and everyday acts of perseverance that you see as the foundation of American character and life. What inspires you to write poetry?
My feelings about life tend to be deep, intense, and raw. Poetry allows me to express what I’m feeling openly and honestly. When I’ve gone through difficult trials and encountered frustrating situations, writing poetry is a healthy release so the feelings aren’t repressed or ignored.
How have your own experiences shaped the way you write about veterans, service, sacrifice, and returning home?
My writing is shaped by listening and showing empathy. I’ve had the honor to teach second and third graders at a base school, and I’ve heard and seen children weep when their parent is deployed and the burdens military families carry emotionally and financially can be very stressful. My poetry is an effort to translate that listening in a way that honors their sacrifice without claiming it as my own.
Why was it important to you to spotlight such a wide range of professions, from farmers and teachers to plumbers, firefighters, and rideshare drivers?
I chose to spotlight a wide range of professions because I believe all work provides a valuable service, and if that work is done honorably and with all your heart, it should be recognized. We’re created with different gifts and unique abilities, and the work we perform should demonstrate those gifts and abilities to the fullest.
You use direct forms such as limericks and acrostics throughout the book. What draws you to these styles of poetry?
I chose to focus on limericks and acrostics because they are creative ways to express humor and wit about friends and subjects that matter to me. Limericks and acrostics have been very enjoyable in my teaching, and I have found that younger children are willing to take more risks in writing using these two-poetry genre.
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