J. E. M. Hall

I am a programmer by day, and writer by night. Writing while working a full time job may not be what I consider the most comfortable, but that is the reality of the situation. I have three boys. I live and work on an 80 acre plot of land. We run cattle and chickens. We plant and harvest a large garden every year. I’m a city boy that has grown ever-so attached to the country. I couldn’t imagine a better place to raise my children.

I write because I want to write. I don’t write to make other people happy, and I’m not trying to impress anybody with my extensive ability to use a thesaurus. I write what appeals to me, and, then, I run it over with a lawn mower when I edit. I don’t always take the easy path in writing. I write to challenge myself and to grow as a writer. Fortunately, I find challenges and growth fun and rewarding.

In the 4th grade, I developed a love of books, especially for the Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Accelerate Reader came as a bonus to my enjoyment of reading when my total points was more than my entire 4th grade class totaled up. In high school and college I lost that love. Reading became work, and I forgot about reading for fun. Then something unexpected happened. I started reading The Hobbit to my son. At two in the morning, long after the children were asleep, I was still reading the Hobbit. Tolkien had a way of making writing alluring. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. In the middle of the second Lord of the Rings Book, in the middle of a page, mid-sentence, a question hit me that would forever change my life. Can I write a novel?

My journeys in writing and reading have taken me many places I otherwise would never have found.