James Eastick

I both live and work in Norwich, England where I can be found indulging in red wine and heavy metal while cynically plotting my neighbours' downfall.

Get to know James...

Birthdate? January 3rd, 1984

When did you start writing? I started writing originally doing fan fiction in my early and mid-twenties for games such as Bioshock, World of Warcraft and Mass Effect which I shared with other fans on various websites. After doing this for a while I decided to try doing my own stuff and took some creative writing classes.

When and what and where did you first get published? The first story I had appeared a couple of years ago in a Canadian publication called Separate Worlds, a short story about the day in the life of a young man in a London heavily afflicted by climate change.

What themes do you like to write about? I tend to focus predominantly on science fiction and fantasy, though I prefer to focus on personal issues and character struggles within alternate settings. I frequently write about individuals trapped into certain situations they have little or no control over, people both with and without power locked into political or social institutions they have little or no control over. Earlier this year I had a short story published about a group of individuals on different sides in a conflict forced into an escalating level of violence and altering their personalities in order to present a false image to others.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? I'm particularly influenced by Dune by Frank Herbert and the Song of Ice and Fire series from George R R Martin. I love the world building in both as well as the focus on individuals and the string of unintended consequences their actions arise. Although I enjoy reading genre fiction, the pieces I admire the most are those which tend to follow stronger senses of realism and character driven pieces.