Featured Interview With Author Stephen K. Stanford
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in a hippie backwoods outside Melbourne, and finding myself therefore unemployable, turned to serial entrepreneurship, running businesses in the fashion, music and construction industries, and producing numerous projects for the arts including a live performance adaption of My Dinner with Andre, and the feature film, Four Jacks.
I am a devoted meditator and ashram frequenter, have reared a rock star (literally) and live on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula with wife Vani, and two highly truculent Siamese cats.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My father took me to a planetarium at a very young age, and from then on, I was hooked on anything to do with space and stars. I started reading books on astronomy and then YA sci-fi. When my father died suddenly, my way of connecting with him was to read through his huge collection of golden age science fiction novels and magazines. In later years I “outgrew” science fiction, but when I made the decision to do this, asked myself: “what could I write that would really come from my heart?” The answer was close to home.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite book as a spotty teenager was The Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison. It’s about a swashbuckling intergalactic criminal who slips between the cracks and steals money without hurting anyone – he maintains that he’s doing society a favor by keeping the cops on their toes, and by giving people something to be excited about in the antiseptic societies of the future. My intention with Jubilee was to write something that had an equivalent amount of humor, and irreverence and fun. In recent years I have loved the Murderbot series by Martha Wells, and am a fan of Anne Leckie, John Scalzi, Ian M Bank and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Jubilee is a science fiction story set in the far future. Special agents, Col and Danee are sent to retrieve a body from a place called Jubilee which exists within its own parallel universe without any government scrutiny or control. It’s a kind of Las Vegas in space – a free for all where anything goes, run by an eccentric AI called Douglas.
Instead of the in and out mission that was planned, our heroes are forced to stay over on Jubilee where they learn it is a very different place to what they thought. When they finally get to collect their corpse, they discover it’s been switched, and this starts a series of cascading events that culminate in a galaxy wide quest to save Col’s estranged wife Danee.
The sequel, Stars Like Us will be published by Flame Tree Press in November 2025.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles
Stephen K. Stanford Facebook Page
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