W. Gregory Stewart

Biography

W. Gregory Stewart has an empty emu egg beside him as he writes this. It is not a metaphor for the universe or anything else--he just thought you should know about it. He was born in Canada, eh? He's lived in Australia--g'day. He lives in Los Angeles, with wife and son, which is in California with steps, and in-laws, and grands. He is a grateful man.

Get to know W...

Birthdate? May 1. (Cool date, doncha think? Well, I always have, anyway.) Let's stop with that--1950 is SOOOOO long ago...

When did you start writing? Grade school--my first poem was published when I was 12. Something that made rhymes about hurricanes--we lived in Florida at the time, Fort Lauderdale. (Actually, it was during this time I fell in love with [questionable] SciFi (ALL those movies, right? Teenagers from Outer Space. Something about Killer Shrews that were, if I recall, dogs in not-overly-exacting make-up. But--what really pushed me was Porky in Whackyland chasing the last of the Do-Do's. Emblazoned, it is, on too many of my last functional braincells....) Anyway, I think the publication was called Scimitar & Song. My first fantasy work was "Barrow's Road", published in Australia while I lived there.

When and what and where did you first get published? LOL--looks like I touched on that already. So instead, maybe I can share one more thing? I still remember one or 2 things in their entirety from "The Space Child's Mother Goose". Smiles all around on that one. [Jeez, I really AM old, aren't I!) It's worth tracking down, if you haven't already.

What themes do you like to write about? The fallen loser. Games with words and the sounds of words, and language. The middle ground between faith and science. The big BIG picture. The ordinary in the heart of the extraodinary. The bad BAD joke.

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? R A Lafferty--his was language that rivaled Ellison's and Bradbury's. Tom Robbins, the early works, for folks cast into the fantastic. Kipling, the deft verse. Asimove and Clarke and Niven and all the real science. Gould, for the panorama of science. It goes on--crikey, if you ask me this next year, it'd be a different list, and different focus--and if you asked me this last year or 10 years ago--different again. You know what, really? I love the English language, and envy everyone who has worked it well. If I narrow things to a genre/form focus--look at Davie CKM--the man is part of the spinal cord of this world. Or the spine. And Denise D., and Bruce B., and Robert Frazier and Debbie K and Nancy E-T and Kendall and Sam and.... Ok, you are ALL great, and I am grateful, and there's no room to laud you all, and I mean that most seriously, so--well, if anyone feels slighted not to have been singled out, let me know and I will shout out your name in downtown Santa Monica. You can't spend it, but... you know--the thought will be there.