Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Like most writers, I've been doing this since I was a kid.  I still recall my first (very surreal) short story when I was in grade 4:  I probably still have it somewhere.  To say I’ve been telling stories all my life is not an understatement.  Of course, I didn’t start to get really good at it until high school with my first creative writing class.  It wasn’t so much the material taught that helped me as it was the teaching and discussion.  It opened up my awareness of what could be done in this medium. So now that I’ve got a collection of short stories and a novel out there (and many other novels, not quite yet ready to come out) I need to reach out to my audience. My main influence is Yukio Mishima.  I consider him the greatest writer humanity has produced thus far. But I’m also impressed by Margarette Atwood, Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and many others...