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Writer's pictureJohn Brage

I'm So Glad You Are Here!

Welcome to my blog. Thank you for subscribing to my website. It is humbling to know that readers will invest some of their precious reading time in something that I wrote. I will do my best to earn that investment every time I sit down to create something.


I wanted to give you a little bit of information about who I am and how I got......here. "Here" for me is a point in my life where I'm finally determined to really focus on my writing. I'm 53 and have been a nerd my entire life. When I was a kid, we didn't have video game consoles, smart phones, or 200 TV channels (plus streaming) to keep ourselves entertained. Instead we went outside a lot! We walked or rode or bikes everywhere we went. In the summer, we played 500 or Indian Ball at the playground until it was too dark to see. In the fall, we played basketball, alternating between 21 and 2-on-2 in the driveway and full on, no fouls called, 5-on-5 on the blacktop at school. In the winter it was tackle football on the frozen ground at the park. We fished. We committed acts of juvenile defiance that, for the most part, were never discovered. But when I was at home, away from my friends, I read. I read everything I could get my hands on.


My very first book was Green Eggs and Ham. I think I was about 4. Once I discovered that I could pick up a book and make it through on my own, the doors were wide open. My Mom would take me to the library or we had a Bookmobile that would stop near our home every couple of weeks where I could get more books. If I didn't have a book to read, I read the Encyclopedia (I told you......nerd!). We also had a large collection of old National Geographics stashed back in our downstairs laundry room. I spent a lot of time reading about the variety of topics offered by that publication.


But the stories that transported me to fantastic realms were my favorite. I read The Foundation trilogy when I was about 12 (although I didn't really understand it). Thomas Covenant. Lord of the Rings. Master of the Five Magics. I collected comic books. The Avengers. Spider Man. The Fantastic Four. I was fascinated by the way these universes fit together. Later I became interested in stories where humankind had its societal restrictions stripped away, allowing me to see the authors' views about who we REALLY are at our core. Lord of the Flies. Deliverance. The Road. The Stand. Of course, different authors provided different views of unrefined humanity, but the time I spent thinking about what they had to offer was intoxicating. It made me want to walk down that creative path myself just to see where my mind might go.


I'm intrigued by questions of morality. What do we owe one another? What is at the heart of the conflict between "good" and "evil", however those terms might be defined. Is there intrinsic value in a moral life, or does it simply put one at a disadvantage when faced by those who don't make that choice? And power. Power is a concept that I find almost mesmerizing. Pragmatism's ultimate currency, but also a distraction from idealistic aims. My most heroic figures are those who can look into the heart of the Abyss without becoming monsters themselves.


There we go. My hope is to take my readers on the types of journeys of the mind that I have always enjoyed so much. To captivate you with intriguing characters facing a myriad of challenges, both external and internal. First and foremost, I hope you finish reading my work with a tinge of regret that the story is over. But along the way, if you find a new perspective on something you hadn't considered before, then I've succeeding in my goal to guide you down a pathway to where magic lies.


As always - Happy Reading!!!

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