Today I'm interviewing a very prolific and well known poet, author, Ronald Hull.

Thank you so much for this interview, Ron. I know you are a deep thinker and I've looked forward to combing some of your thoughts.

Thank you as well, I'm most happy to oblige.

I see in your bio that you were born in WI. Did you live there your entire childhood? Did you grow up in a city or in the country?

I stayed in Wisconsin until I was 23, primarily because I couldn't afford to pay out-of-state tuition when I entered college at 18. My first six years through first grade were in a very small town very close to the country. In second grade we moved to Wausau, an industrial city, and lived in a changing, rather bad, neighborhood until the sixth grade. And then, we moved to a farming centered medium sized town, Marshfield, Wisconsin until I left for college.

How do you think your childhood and the locality where you were raised impacted your writing?

I had very good teachers who struggled with a boy who would rather be outside and adventuring than writing required English assignments. However, I was very competitive and always did my assignments quickly and at my best. I had many experiences in childhood that I always wanted to relate. Both adventures in the countryside with my cousins and adventures in the city like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. My friends tended to be like that, very different from me, but fun to adventure with.

What environmental influence do you think did most to shape you as a man and a writer?

Travel has enlightened me to both the world and the people that live in it. Going to graduate school introduced me to people from many nationalities and I was drawn to them and their cultures. When I left Wisconsin for graduate school in California, I arrived at Stanford a square studying engineering when flower power was in bloom and the Summer of Love was happening. I gobbled up all I could of that heady lifestyle while still remaining square, more as an observer than a participant. I studied everything from religion to philosophy to psychology in my quest for understanding. California amazed me and I traveled widely in the state whenever I could.

My career took me first to work for a major corporation, General Telephone, where I worked with many World War II veterans, including one superior who was a proud member of the German Navy during the war. I was asked to return to my alma mater and teach, so I entered the realm of college teaching as an instructor.

And then, I needed a doctorate to continue to be upward mobile and took my doctorate in education at West Virginia University where I found the great contrasts of living in the Appalachians and respect for the environment that was so destroyed, unlike Wisconsin. After my doctorate, I taught for a while in Huntington, a place that reminded me of old Virginia, 10 years behind the times, but a wonderful place to live.

Returning to WVU as a coordinator of research, I helped write 63 proposals for technology studies in three years, mostly environmentally friendly and educational ventures into small-scale technologies that could be easily transferred to other countries and used locally. I bought a little cottage on a coal mine poisoned beautiful blue green lake far from town and took off for the wilds whenever I could.

I got involved in the World Future Society and joined the American Association For the Advancement of Science, the oldest organization of its type in the United States. During this time I took a trip around the world, often staying in homes of families of students and faculty that I knew.

Occupation called and I landed in Atlanta teaching in the graduate school of business of the predominantly African-American, Atlanta University. The students either adored or hated me for my detailed correction of their papers. Some of the faculty, did not like me and my atheist Yankee ways. However, I certainly enjoyed the Southern ambience and built myself a dream home that was solar passive and very advanced in the mountainous woods eight miles from downtown.

Between jobs, I returned briefly to Wisconsin and found it no longer to my liking--too cold and the students too homogeneous and bland. A friend of mine from WVU had become vice president of Texas Southern University in Houston and asked me to come down and “turn it around.” I did, and spent the next 30 years working to try to make this predominantly African-American university a better place. I married a high school classmate that I met at my 20th reunion and we settled down in suburban Houston. She left after three years to go “home.” And I have remained here ever since where I began writing fiction.

What person in your life had the greatest influence on you and why?

I have had many mentors, some who were very good writers with many published books. However, I would have to say my mother. She was young but very open, allowing me to explore reading, writing, drawing and adventuring without much restraint. She was full of praise when my twin brother and I did well and I don't recall her ever being very hard on us as far as anything we did. She disciplined us gently and left any hard discipline to my father. It was that freedom and that willingness to accept all the crazy things I did and the strange people that I dragged home during holidays. While my dad was more into advising, always telling us, "Don't do what I did," my mother never stood in the way of any direction I took. Both parents were very proud of my brother's and my accomplishments.

Ron you have been very open about being an atheist. What influenced your opinion in that regard?

I felt independent and responsible for my own actions by the time I was about ten. While I joined Boy Scouts and attended Sunday school and youth church groups, I never became religious and participated primarily for the fellowship. In college, I joined a church group and got involved in civil rights and the antiwar movement. By the time I was a junior in college I wasn't satisfied with the direction I was taking (to become an architect) and took a self reevaluation, finding that I was on the right track according to my interests.

And then, I was partially paralyzed in my upper body, hands and arms during spinal surgery in the middle of my junior year and had to reevaluate my life even further. I returned to the church group and became president. In graduate school, I started out with church groups, but found them apathetic and lacking in commitment and was faced with many concerns about my scholarship that was lacking for the level I was in.

It was philosophy that I was reading that turned me toward being nonreligious and an atheist. I have since become convinced that philosophically an atheist can be a good person with an ethical conscience and work within the framework of society very well without wasting so much time spent honoring mythology that no longer has any value, and, in fact, has become very disruptive in the hands of users with good or evil intentions.

Were your parents of any faith and if so why did you reject their beliefs?

My father went to church where my mother asked him to go. He never seemed to be very religious--just went through the motions. While my mother was a lifelong member of both the Congregational, and later, Presbyterian churches, she also was not very religious and did not impose religion on us as children. I didn't reject their faith. It’s never been a problem between us.

In your opinion, how should civilization look?

I think the purpose of civilization is to organize people in productive and cooperative communities that fully understand how important the natural environment is to our lives. We should have some way of friendly, but not destructive competition so that we do not become weak and dependent, but we should not continue the oppression of so many for the benefit of the few rich and powerful.

We are at a turning point where we can no longer plunder the earth like we have in order to build our civilizations that have all failed in the past. There are lessons to be learned from these failed civilizations. If we don't learn from their mistakes, we will fail as well. I prefer a type of government that seems to be working quite well in the formerly fiercely warlike Scandinavian countries. Without labeling too much, I think the Internet enables us to have a truly democratic discussion of how we want to solve our problems and move forward. One thing's for certain, we will need to evolve positively in many ways both physically and mentally if we are to move out into the solar system and beyond.

What should be done to move toward such an ideal society?

First, we must understand that all humans are essentially the same. We all have the same desires, needs and wants. We must break down nationalistic and idealistic barriers that are holding us back as a world civilization. That is happening. Corporations are and have been for some time, multinational. While retaining cultures for historical purposes, we should move ahead towards a worldwide culture that respects every human being and provides opportunity for personal growth. War serves no purpose. It hasn't for some time.

You are a very prolific writer, what do you find in everyday life that inspires you to write?

Everything. I will get an idea and can write a poem about it. I will see something in my environment and it will inspire me to write a poem or a short story. Dreams have initiated poems or short stories.

How many books have you published?

Six books of fiction and my autobiography so far. My first was published in 1999. My dissertation was book length, 480 pages, in 1974.

Did you use conventional or self publishing and why?

I gravitated to self-publishing because I felt that I could write, edit, format, and do my own book covers. My first book was only an e-book, anyway. I had no contact with traditional publishers and long ago was turned down as an author in a multi-volume textbook series, probably because I over edited an outline that I reviewed.

Ron do you have any advice for serious poets and authors?

Unless you are a famous poet or a super promoter, poetry books don't sell. I have learned to like all styles of poetry, but if you don't write something that communicates to the reader, then your poem is likely to be misunderstood. If you write poetry only for self therapy or you write continually on the same subject, do not expect your readers to have empathy with you or not become bored with you being unable to change the subject.

As for all authors who post on the Internet, it is very important to try to present as clean a copy as possible with proper English (or other language), punctuation, grammar and the like. I have learned the hard way that in spite of self editing, I benefit greatly from having someone else edit my work. If your post is sloppy and full of errors, people will dismiss your ability to write. Don't expect posting poorly written material to be accepted by others out of hand. Remember, what you post may be there forever and it may be a source of embarrassment as your writing matures. Some of my published work needs revision and I know it.

Above all, write and read. The more you write, the better you get at it. The more you read the more styles you will pick up and incorporate in your writing. You will also increase your vocabulary.

Who are your two favorite authors and why do they appeal to you?

That’s a tough one, but I believe, Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton. I was amazed at how these two authors could take scientific discoveries and turn them into compelling fictional dramas that mirror historical discoveries and the difficulty and drama surrounding them. I, like them, find science fact much more exciting and more realistic than science fantasy. Star Trek and Star Wars strike me as soap operas in space.

What are your hobbies and interests, other than writing?

I love hunting and fishing. Airplanes and cars, from design to working on them. Designing and building sustainable structures. Computer programming. Movies and TV dramas that are not soap operas. And most of all, getting out in nature and travel. I like all kinds of music. Finally, helping others. I've always enjoyed being of help, even when I can't physically help people I can certainly help them with all sorts of nonphysical things.

What person of present, or any other time period, would you most like to have a conversation with and what would you like to discuss with them?

Einstein is dead and Stephen Hawking would be very difficult to have a conversation with, so it would be either Michio Kaku, who I met briefly, or Neil deGrasse Tyson and we would discuss the future of humanity.

Ron, you are well traveled. Of all the locations you have visited which has been your favorite and why?

I keep going back to Yellowstone, but I would have to say Guatemala. the history and ambience of Antigua with its Spanish heritage is wonderful. You can get involved in colorful native culture in the marketplace and the villages. Lake Atitlan is picturesque and so peaceful. You can climb a volcano alone. Tikal waits in the steaming jungle much of its mystery still to be revealed. And more that I didn't see and experience.

What destination you have never visited would you most like to travel to and why?

Initially it was Kathmandu, but now it's the Galapagos. I would love to see the animals there that have evolved to be so different and unafraid of humans and where Darwin culminated his ideas about evolution.

What projects are you working on now?

I'm currently working on American Mole: Aryan Nation, the final novel in the American Mole trilogy following War's End. I'm thinking of revamping my website and possibly, selling my books there. After that, I may turn some of my short stories into novels.

What would you like to accomplish in the new year in your life and in your writing?

Find a way to see my mother who I haven't seen since 2011. It isn't easy to travel with two helpers, my wheelchair, and all the gear that I need. I'd like to finish at least two books and finally get to promoting like I should.

What do you consider your greatest accomplishment in life?

It hasn't happened yet. My award from Gov. Ann Richards of Texas for my comprehensive energy conservation plan used by the state and my endowment to my alma mater funding assistantships come in a close second.

Is there anything you would like to say to your readers?

I appreciate very much your willingness to read what I've written. Please feel free to contact me at any time to discuss anything you've read.

Tell us briefly about your philosophy of life.

In spite of strong beliefs otherwise, we only have one life to live and we must make the best of it. As an atheist, I can't blame or use some superior being to justify my actions and must rely on my own ability to discern right or wrong. I believe in situational ethics because life does not remain the same and we must adjust our ethics to meet the real need, not an imagined one.

As an existentialist, I try to live every moment to the fullest and the only legacy that I will leave will be what I've done to advance humankind. Unlike others, I don't believe that having children or passing on wealth to children is a legacy. Finally, if my published work lasts beyond my lifetime, it will become part of my legacy.

Thank you so much Ron, it's been an honor to interview you.