Alison S. Parkins Fun Author Interview with Donald Landon Canterbury

Alison S. Parkins Fun Author Interview with

***~* Donald Landon Canterbury*~***

All about you!

Name: Donald Landon Canterbury

Location: Saint Augustine Florida

Star Sign: Taurus

What genre/genres do you write? Currently Science Fiction/Dystopian, but I also like dabbling in High Fantasy, Historical Fiction, and Poetry.

Tell us a random fact about yourself: I’m willing to try and plant anything, regardless of what science says about region or climate. I currently have several citrus saplings I’ve grown from seed, knowing full well that they may not fruit for years, if ever. My thought is that said tree will still give shade, and if need be future generations may benefit from its fruit, even if I do not.

Where is your dream holiday destination? I would love to visit Iceland, or Denmark. My heritage is Scandinavian, and I’d love to be able to see the surviving culture first hand before it disappears.

Food

What is your all-time favourite food? Cheesecake. Or smoked foods. My wife and I found a recipe for a smoked Cheesecake recently, and we can’t wait to see the two culinary worlds collide.

What is your favourite Take-Away choice? Due to my wife’s autoimmune ailment, we haven’t eaten at a restaurant in several years but when I did, I would have to say I have a soft spot for Hibachi Grill or Mongolian Barbeque.

Tell us your favourite sweets/candy? I miss Butterfingers…soooooooo badly. We have made homemade Reese cups, and more recently found organic varieties available to purchase. So a guy can hope Butterfinger goes organic one day, right?

If you like to cook, which dish do you enjoy preparing and cooking yourself? I love curing and smoking meats. I think it’s an art form as well as a survival skill going far into our history, and it needs to be preserved. Pun intended.

Do you enjoy baking? If so what is your favourite food item you love to bake? I do actually. My wife and I share the cooking duties daily so I get the opportunity to cook a wide variety of meals, but as far as baking goes, I’d have to say I enjoy baking savoury breads.

What is the one dessert you can never resist? Cheesecake. Hands down. Though that may change to smoked cheesecake very soon, stay tuned.

Book Characters

Which of your book characters has a lot of you in them? I think they all have a little bit of myself, or someone I’ve known. The best characters are the believable ones, and when you plan them out, you end up digging deep into yourself to see the good and the bad.

Who so far, has been your favourite character to write? Rudius/Spatha. Without giving out too many spoilers, I enjoyed writing from it’s unique perspective. Especially when it begins looking at humanity, our actions, and the way we treat each other it gets really intriguing. It causes you to take a big step back from what we know of society and how it works. Intriguing and scary at the same time, and quite exhilarating to step into those shoes.

If you could be any character from any book, who would you be and why? Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach from The Watchmen books. He was a different kind of vigilante hero, who stood for what he believed and never compromised. He never arrested criminals, giving them the chance to get out later and cause more mayhem, he dealt with them brutally. Most “Bad guys” avoided him like the plague, and I think if our modern justice system was to be just as savage and brutal, the world would shape up exponentially faster.

Is there one of your book characters that you have disliked or do you love them all in some way, even the bad guys? I dislike all the members of the Roth family, only because they reflect what I feel is everything wrong with those in power in our day and age. It was hard to put myself in their shoes in order to write their parts, but at the same time it made me feel better knowing I felt morally wrong in even entertaining their ideas enough to write them out, but it was truly a necessary evil. That being said, the Roth’s are still human. If life has taught me anything, it’s that every person is capable of great good or great evil, and it comes down to a daily choice.

Random Questions

What car do you drive? 2007 Toyota Sienna

What is your dream car? I hear Tesla is planning on coming out with a pickup truck next year. Let’s just say I’d be a very happy camper if I could ever get one of those.

Who is your current eye candy/crush? My wife Jennifer, and no that’s not an “I better say it or she’ll hate me” answer either. I admire beauty in all forms, and commonly point out handsome men, beautiful women, or inspiring aspects of nature to her and others. She’s the only one I desire to see daily though, and that’s if she’s all dressed up, or bed hair and PJ’s. Makes no difference to me.

Which celebrity did you have a crush on as a teenager? Mila Jovovich. She’s stunningly beautiful, a talented actress, a great musician (checkout her album Divine Comedy on YouTube if you were unaware she did music, you won’t be disappointed) and she’s also a terrific mother. Even as a teenager I sought more than just aesthetics in my crushes, and that remains still today. She’s still beautiful and awesome, so I’m glad to know nothing has changed in 15 years.

What is your favourite movie of all-time? Transformers: The animated Movie from the 80’s. I’m a diehard Transformers fan, and to this day can recite that entire film by heart, including soundtrack and acting out most scenes.

Who is your favourite band/singer of all-time? AC/DC, before their recent inter-band drama and division. It’s still hard to resist the urge to air guitar when old school AC/DC comes on, and I doubt that will ever change for me.

Tell us more about you, tell us as much or as little as you like…

I think I’m a pretty down to earth guy, I’ve recently acquired the title of Hippie and I’m actually okay with that. I practice what I preach though, so to speak. I am a huge supporter of Permaculture gardening, clean living, and keeping a positive perspective. Coffee definitely helps the perspective issue most days, and you will rarely see me without my Klean Kanteen full of coffee. I am always growing something, or trying to grow something new and I am a known to upcycle almost anything into something useful if I can. Twice a month I run a Tabletop RPG session with a group of 12 friends, and if I’m not writing my books, you’ll find me jotting down stats and rolling dice for my latest bad guy or hero. I have two wonderful children, America Grace Canterbury, and Mae Ahna Canterbury, who are my world. In fact, they are the reason I first started to pursue being an author, as I designed a Tabletop RPG for kids their age, and then found I needed a fan base for it before I could publish it. SO here I am, writing the Of Mice Not Men series, with the hopes that mid-way though it will have enough following and support to make the Tabletop RPG that inspired the whole story popular. Ultimately, I’ll be happy when I can see my kids everyday as opposed to just several days a month as it currently stands, and we can live on a couple permacultured acres. Spending time with the family, the garden, and the world’s I’ve created…now that’s a perfect day for me if one ever were to exist.

If we wanted to stalk you where can we find you?

I’m actually on Facebook pretty regularly and I have a fan page for myself as an author, a profile as an author (to keep business and personal a little apart), and a Facebook fan page for my in-progress book series.

I’ve also recently started exploring Twitter, which I’m still new to, so bear with me.

Lastly, my email address is Lorekeeperofmousekind@gmail.com, feel free to drop me a line anytime, just bear in mind I’m a husband, father, and a licensed Massage Therapist first, so it may take me a few days to respond.

Author Fan Page Twitter Amazon Author Page

Author Profile (Where I will most likely be found on Facebook most days)

Official book series Fan Page

Now we know more about you, tell us about your books…

I like to think they are pretty good books, and so far, I have 9, 5 star reviews on Amazon, so it seems at least a few people agree with me. The official Facebook fan page for the series currently has the entire first chapter of Division available for preview viewing, and I plan to do the same with the remaining 11 books to come. This way people can get an idea of what it’s like before they decide to read it or not. I also have a moral objection to charging a ton of money for my work, as I feel books are timeless bundles of wisdom, and should never cost a fortune. Ever. So, my ebooks are $4.99 on Amazon, and unless they change their pricing, I have no intentions on ever changing that price. The same applies to the remaining 11 books as well, and I want to keep them the same price. My paperbacks are more expensive than I wanted them to be originally, but due to the size and page count of the book, they cost more than I expected to print. At $14.00 I thought that was a bit much, but after checking several other books of similar size, I see it’s pretty average. Unless Amazon changes their printing plans, that price too, shall remain unchanged for the remainder of the series. I’ve had several people remark upon my writing style, so let me say that if one chapter upsets you, read the next few to see if they redeem the previous one before you get angry at the story. I believe that swearing need not be vulgar to prove its point, intimacy need not be fleshed out in great detail, or violence need not be gratuitous for a reader to understand and that shows in my writing style as well. I want my stories to be able to be read by people of many walks of life and age groups, so I have given myself certain guidelines. An underlying theme in my stories is the commonality of humanity, and that we need not divide our society up by stereotypes, race, religion, or philosophy if we can help it. That’s why my characters are described, but not in a manner to which they are given a race, skin colour, or ethnicity. This way no matter what part of the world you are in, or what your idea of how a Thomas or Jasmine should look, you get to imagine for yourself.

Though not a romance novel there are aspects of it to be found throughout my stories and I have a reader who only reads romance novels, but she loved Division. The same goes for war, conflict, and philosophy, so you’ll see pockets of all those sub-genres from time to time. I’ve also included several “easter eggs” and kick-backs to many different inspirations, and so far nobody has caught any of them. If you happen to think you found one, write me an email and you’ll get a special mention in my next book, as well as online on my many pages for your cleverness. I honestly hope that like so many others who have already enjoyed them, despite them not being their normal genre of choice, you too will enjoy them as well.