Whenever I am tasked with doing my bio information, I end up getting the giggles as I opine about myself in third person. And here we go again: (chortle)
The Question
Darwin A. Garrison lives in Indiana with his wife, three children, and various family pets of the felis and canis persuasion (our one rodentia family member has long since passed along to that great hawk-free field full of seed-bearing grasses in the sky.) He began migrating from reading books delivered by the Science Fiction Book Club to writing his own drivel during high school. At one point during his rather migratory college years, he received an “A+” in a creative writing class. The thought, “This might be kind of fun,” occurred and more or less sealed his fate.
His first published story came out in a college journal (Her Family’s Memories, Rose-Hulman Thorn, Fall 1983 issue). Despite this meager success, he put aside writing at that time in favor of actually graduating.
After many years in heavy truck industry, Darwin again took up the word processor in 2002 out of desperation to get back in touch with the creativity that he had previously left behind. Although originally started merely as a stress outlet, the response from colleagues who enjoyed SF/F stories encouraged him to show his stories to a wider venue via the net and a Baen associated critique group, Barfly Slush. The responses from the participants in the critique group along with positive feedback of sorts from his submissions the “Writers of the Future” contest encouraged him to focus on learning the tools and tricks of the speculative fiction trade.
Darwin’s work is heavily character oriented, regardless of whether the story is a military-sf space opera or a high fantasy adventure tale. Yet his background as an engineer provides him with the tools necessary to create plausible and detailed worlds that help keep the reader immersed throughout the story.