fiction and readable nonfiction
-
Timothy James Dean
- Male
- United States
- Share
- Blog Posts
- Discussions
- Events
- Groups
- Photos
- Photo Albums
- Videos
Timothy James Dean's Page
Gifts Received
Timothy James Dean has not received any gifts yet
Profile Information
- I am...
- Reader, Author
- Favorite Books:
- Too many to list! But deep influences on my upcoming book, TEETH - The Epic Novel With Bite, include:
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville
- Jaws (more Spielberg than Benchley)
- Shogun, Gai Jin, Tai Pan, Noble House, etc. by my mentor, James Clavell
- Heart of Darkness and many others, Joseph Conrad
- The Jungle Stories, The Man Who Would Be King and more, Rudyard Kipling
- The Odyssey, of course, by Homer
- Tales of the South Pacific, James Michener
- Cannibal Valley, Russell T. Hitt
- Under the Mountain Wall, Peter Matthiessen
- The Lone Samurai, William Scott Wilson
- The Ghost Mountain Boys, James Campbell
- Dragon of the Mangroves, Yasuyuki Kasai
- Favorite Genres
- - mainstream fiction
- the classics
- adventure
- historical
- some "horror" and fantasy, of the Stephen King type
- In my spare time, if I'm not reading, I'm:
- - writing and editing!
- spending time with Deborah
- studying how to be successful as a networking author
- hiking in the mountains, playing my guitar
- going to movies
- About Me:
- I grew up in many countries, a multi-cultural "worlder" - or as my friend, the late great Norma McCaig dubbed us, a "Global Nomad." Now I think of us as "One Worlders." There are two sides to this - a sense of rootlessness and lack of connection on the darker side, but on the other, a feeling of being equally at home anywhere.
Once I felt like the chameleon who had learned how to blend in and mimic the humans with whom I found myself in any location - but who deep down, did not fit. I was the outsider, the eternal stranger. (This did help me to hone my abilities as an observer). Gradually, as I came to terms with my own past, more at home in my own skin, and began to articulate how I felt, I discovered that many others feel like me. They might not have jumped so spectacularly from country to country - merely gone from one city or neighborhood to another, but they, too, had been wounded, and carried similar baggage.
They did not feel like they had a home community: they could rely on no deep connections, no tribal "belonging."
The social scientists who have studied people raised like me say that we are not rooted vertically, but "laterally." We do not connect with a home town: rather, we remember relationships and experiences - things we carry inside us.
An important part of my own makeup is compose of the worlds I carry within - the ones I explored in books. From an early age I loved to read, and I recall among a vast panorama, the Narnia books I consumed as a lad, and the collected works of Dickens in which I immersed myself in my teens.
While today I am a full-time writer , I had at least one other career - in television production, mostly of documentaries. I wrote, shot, produced and edited "Return of the Dolphin," narrated by rock star Bryan Adams for Discovery, and "The Toughest Break" on spinal cord injury, with Christopher Reeve, for PBS, Discovery Health, and others.
I spent a decade of my boyhood on the savage island of New Guinea - home of headhunters and cannibals, and the largest reptile on earth, the saltwater crocodile (the pic on this page was shot there, on the Sepik River, during one of my return trips).
For many years I dreamed of writing an epic yarn that would pit modern man against the Stone Age, and both against primeval nature in the form of a gargantuan predator. Eventually, I was able to set aside other things and devote myself fully to writing. And now I am almost ready to share the first of what poured out - a trilogy of novels.
"TEETH" is the first, which I intend to release in late 2009. It features a 20-year-old American soldier, Johnny Willman, his Australian mate Footy, and their Japanese prisoner. Together they must survive a perilous odyssey down a river that runs through the heart of New Guinea. The story occurs during the final days of World War 2, as America is about to drop the atom bombs on Japan.
In their first confrontation with "the Father," a massive crocodile based on a historical man-eater by that name (see photo), Johnny shoots its foot off. From that moment on, the reptile fixates on the smooth-headed man (the helmeted soldier), and hunts him relentlessly. Our heroes flee before it - directly toward the Valley of the Cannibals, the most feared headhunters on the island (also based on a real tribal group). Eventually, Johnny confronts the beast in the heart-stopping climax on the beaches of the South Pacific. Along the way, enemies consumed by hatred, grow through grudging respect, to appreciation and even friendship. (I believe that mine is the first exploration of American and Japanese enemies becoming friends).
Back Port Moresby, Gwyndolyn awaits. The lovely nurse saved Johnny's life. She is attracted to the man, but cannot bear the hardened killer he has become. If he can answer her challenge to find his heart, Johnny may just have a chance with Gwyn.
My new website, complete with compelling pictures and videos, is under construction!
About
© 2009 Created by Ann C. Theis on Ning. Create Your Own Social Network
Comment Wall (1 comment)
You need to be a member of overbooked: a resource for readers to add comments!
Join this social network
I'm getting ready for the launch of TEETH - The Epic Novel With Bite!