PEJ: I started to write when I was 35 years old (15 years ago). Up until that point I was busy completing my education, establishing a career, and starting a family. I did it, really, just to see if I could. I wasn't sure where it would take me, but people kept encouraging me to write more, so I did. I used the 15 years to polish my writing style and create an inventory of stories. I have 7 completed novels (3 of them part of the Timeshift Trilogy). The second book in the Timeshift Trilogy, Between Two Worlds, will be out around November. Timeshift establishes the Beta Light concept and gives us a peek at life in the 25th century. Between Two Worlds will explore that society in more detail, and the final book, (due out in 2002), will focus on the events leading to the apocalypse.

As for my background, getting a Ph.D. was the greatest non-decision of my life. I just kept going until I ran out of degrees, and stopped! Seriously, I'd intended to teach at the university level, but the early 1980s were a bad time for the teaching profession, so I switched careers. I've stayed involved with politics, but mostly around the periphery. I enjoy the give and take of Washington, but don't want to lose my soul by actually making a career there.

PEJ: I watched this really bad movie in the late 1970s about WWIII. (It starred Jason Robards, but I can't remember the title). ["The Day after" --Ed] I thought it was a heavy-handed, completely contrived way of dealing with what could have been a very interesting story about how to survive after a thermonuclear war. So, I decided to write my own story instead. However, I was influenced by the imagery of the nuclear "ash" falling and blanketing Kansas City. I borrowed and expanded upon this for my own story.

PEJ: A nuclear war is the most horrible, man-made calamity imaginable. It carries with it the real threat of wiping out civilization as we know it. Yet, some people will survive, and it's fascinating to think how they will continue their lives cut off from everything, culturally and technologically, that has defined their existence up to that point. It's a modern day tale of Robinson Crusoe --- only it's a collective, not individual quest, and there's no hope of rescue. Whatever man wants from that point forward, he must create out of the ashes and residue of what survived the war.

PEJ: I loved reading Danny Dunn books from the 1950s. They were great, and gave me all the influence I needed to think about one day writing my own stories. Most of my other inspiration comes from watching movies.

PEJ: Getting out books 2 and 3 of the Timeshift Trilogy, then I'll work on getting my other novels published. I've got a deep space action adventure called Broderick's Bluff, a parallel worlds series (Crossover and Crossback), and one that defies easy characterization --- Second Death, about people who die but still stay around. By the time all those are in print, I'll have a couple more ready to go.