StoryTellerZine

  Featured Writer Jerry Harwood by J. Smith Kirkland Jerry Harwood grew up in Chattanooga and attended Baylor. He is married and has six children and teaches in Sale Creek now. He will tell you that he has worked six different jobs including Camp Director, College Professor, Restaurant owner, CADCII Counselor and Program Director, and Middle School Teacher. He says you’ll have to ask about the sixth one. Jerry has travelled extensively, to Rwanda in the late 90's, teaching at a communist university in Ukraine, backpacking Europe. He has many accolades, being an honorary member of the Black Student Union in college, being accepted as a member of a women's theological group, and was once a dues paying girl scout. In his spare time he has pursued the hobbies of being a volunteer fireman and writing. He has written books in multiple genres: Young Adult, SciFi, Romance... When he takes up a “hobby”, he goes full in and excels at it. I first met him at Con Noo...

  Jerry Harwood STZ: You have written books in multiple genres. Do you enjoy writing in any specific genre more than the others? JH: My favorite genre is probably young adult fantasy but a close second is horror. Those may not sound connected and I suppose they aren’t really. However, as a middle school and high school student that’s what I read. Fafnir and the Grey Mouser, Dune, Deanne Koontz, and Tales from the Crypt. I suppose now my joy is to write books young males would enjoy like I did. Since those two genres opened up the world of reading to myself I gravitate there more often than not. STZ: Where do you get inspiration for your stories? JH: I think my big picture ideas come from mash-ups of stories I’ve read. My recent young adult fantasy derived from reading a nonfiction work on King Arthur and Timeline by Michael (Jurassic park guy). Internally, my characters are all too often people I know in real life.  STZ: Who are some of your fa...