Hello all!
It's that time again, and today I have the pleasure of interviewing American author of all things paranormal, Tyler Butcher. This is going to be some interesting stuff!
PB: Hi! Welcome to pjbermanbooks.com. Tell us a bit about your background.
TB: Hey! I’m a National Guardsman in my mid-twenties.
PB: What made you decide to become an author?
TB: I’d always loved writing and storytelling, but I didn’t know how to apply that. When I found out about self-publishing, and how I could make money on the side doing what I enjoyed, I knew what I wanted to do.
PB: When did you first start writing?
TB: When I was about ten, I used to write short stories and little comics for my own enjoyment.
PB: What first got you interested in the paranormal?
TB: Unsolved Mysteries hosted by Robert Stack, I was always interested when he told a ghost or ufo story on that program even as a young kid.
PB: Where did the idea for 'Visitors!' come from?
TB: Honestly, I got the idea because I was familiar with the material and it was easy to write about. I hadn’t written anything of serious length in some time and I approached it with the intent that I would learn more about my personal writing style and work out some of the early kinks of self-publishing.
PB: Tell us about your recent books, 'Secrets!' and 'Evidence!'.
TB: 'Secrets!' focuses more on conspiracy theories and things of that nature. I tried to blend serious analysis with humour, so some conspiracies like the assassination of JFK get very serious and thorough breakdowns while others are roasted based on how ridiculous their premise is, i.e. Israeli Animal Spying. As for 'Evidence!', it’s a fairly analytical look at the UFO phenomenon. I do my best in that one to be fair and balanced.
PB: When it comes to your fiction writing, you begin writing a new story, do you always know the ending?
TB: I have an idea of what the ending looks like, my approach to fiction is to have a very loose framework to build the story in, but I like to leave things flexible in case my ideas about certain characters and plot elements change.
PB: If you could meet any who has featured in your work, who would you meet, and what would you say to them?
TB: John F. Kennedy, and I would tell him what he did in the war was badass, but he has to get rid of J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
PB: Of all your achievements, which are you most proud of?
TB: Marrying my wife, I’m not gonna lie, I married up.
PB: I'm much the same. Marrying your best buddy is the key to a happy life! Bringing it back to the subject of books though, what is your favourite book series to read and why?
TB: Harry Turtledove’s The Great War, that series is some of the best Alternate History I’ve ever read and does a good job of exploring the ramifications of it’s point of divergence.
PB: What are your long term ambitions with regards to writing?
TB: Long term I would love to eventually do this full time. I’d also like to get into comics at some point.
PB: If you weren’t an author, what career would you be in?
TB: I’d probably get a job around machines, maybe work for a railroad or Toyota or something.
PB: What’s the next target for you?
TB: I’m hard at work trying to get my first novel out by the end of the year.
PB: Tell us a random fact about yourself.
TB: I absolutely hate sweet potatoes. I was in the field for a month once and for a week and a half all we got for food was sweet potatoes. So after all that time of every way you could eat a sweet potato for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I am unwilling to ever eat one ever again.
All the more for me then! There are always plenty in my house. My wife loves them.
More importantly though, I am intrigued to see what you all think of the theories outlined in Tyler's books.
Thank you so much to Tyler Butcher for taking the time to speak to us today. If you would like to purchase his work, you can do so here:
All the best. Happy reading!
Peter