Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing.
My name is Mark Piggott, I am a native of Phillipsburg, NJ. I joined the U.S. Navy in 1983 beginning a 23-year career as a Navy Journalist. During my career, I served on three aircraft carriers and various duty stations across the country. I retired as a Chief Petty Officer in 2006. Since then, I have worked as a civilian employee for the U.S. Navy and now as a writer-editor for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I live in Alexandria, VA, with my wife Georgiene. We have three children.
I started writing my first novel, Forever Avalon, during my last deployment aboard USS Enterprise in 2001. Throughout my Navy career, I had a recurring dream about being on an island of magic and fantasy with my family. I guess this was my way of coping with the separation of deployments. Plus, the hours of playing Dungeons and Dragons in my youth probably added to that. During my last deployment, I started to develop my dream into a story and wrote my initial draft for Forever Avalon. After I finished my manuscript, the dream went away.
I published Forever Avalon in 2009 through James A. Rock Publishing, but the publisher died within a few years after that and the company went out of business. I republished under Amazon through the KDP program to keep my book alive. I followed that up with The Dark Tides in 2014 through iUniverse Publishing and The Outlander War in 2020, completing the trilogy. I then published the start of a new series, The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart, in 2021 through Lulu Press.
The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart has been my most critically acclaimed book to date. It won three book awards, including the 2021 Firebird Book Award (1st place for Steampunk), 2022 AMG Indie Book Award Grand Prize for Fiction, and The BookFest Indie Book Award (3rd place for Fantasy-Magic, Myths and Legends). My cover appeared on the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square with the other 2022 winners in January 2023.
In 2021, I signed with Curious Corvid Publishing, a small publishing house in Ohio. The first published my novella The River of Souls, a fantasy story combined with poetry from poet Ashley Valitutto in August 2021. In January 2023, my steampunk historical fiction Corsair and the Sky Pirates was published.
I am still writing, including short stories for anthologies, magazines, and future manuscripts. I am working on the sequel to The Last Magus as well as the final two chapters in the Forever Avalon series as well as new story ideas, including a YA fantasy and a religious epic fantasy.
Who would you say your biggest literary influences are?
Like any fantasy writer, I was first influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien. I saw the original The Hobbit animated movie as a teenager in the 70s. That led me to the books of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Brooks, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke. I would have to say that the biggest influence on me as a writer was Michael Moorcock. The Elric of Melnibone series was eye opening for me. It showed me that fantasy stories are no limited to the traditional norms. I love the traditional Tolkien. He is the reason we have so many fantasy writers today. But we are all an amalgam of influence from the writers we loved to read and still love to read. To me, true fantasy started with Le Morte d’Arthur. The Arthurian legend is, in my opinion, where the age of magic started in our literature. That is why so many of our stories use Excalibur, Merlin, Morgana le Fay, the Holy Grail, the Lady of the Lake, and other elements from the original Arthurian legends.
How has the history of the middle ages impacted/influenced your work?
I think that most fantasy books start with a middle ages concept. Again, that's where we reach back to King Arthur, Merlin, etc. Most of these stories being in that time period or something akin to it. It's the original vibe of the fantasy trope. The fun part in being a writer is taking that medieval, middle ages adventure and throw in electric lights powered by magic, or an airship or train. That's where a writer can be his or her most creative when developing a story like that.
Do you feel like your writing has been impacted/influenced by Tolkien? If so, in what way(s)?
Tolkien has impact everything you see in today's writing. Orcs were never dreamed of until Tolkien created them. How we envision elves and dwarves are from our understanding and visuals created by his words. During my Navy career, I once did a story on the military and role playing games. I interviewed someone within the D&D company and she told me how Gary Gygax (the creator of D&D) was influenced by Tolkien in turning a tabletop knights medieval warfare game into D&D as we know it today. That's the scope of his influence on my generation and the future generations. How we envision our own worlds we as writers create has all been influenced by Tolkien. We may change somethings here and there to fit our story, but the essence is Tolkien. He gave us a starting point that most fantasy writers follow.
What do you think the current innovations in your genre(s) are?
I like the use of combining steampunk technology with magic. There is a dark fantasy element to mixing magic and machines, and I enjoy bringing that to bear in my THE LAST MAGUS series. Magic was always considered a fluid element, outside the reach of technology, so bringing those elements together is exciting.
What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see more of?
I would love to see more bringing magic and magical elements into the modern age. We always think middle ages when we think of magical fantasy in a story, so bringing it to a more modern era is exciting and fun. I'm writing a YA fantasy story for my young nieces (big readers who inspired me to write this story) involving a mixed Fae and human community hidden away in the American midwest. It should be a lot of fun.
What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see less of?
I think they're romanticizing evil too much. I used to be scared of werewolves and vampires as a kid, but now their teenage heartthrobs. We need to draw those boundaries and don't blur the lines. I understand sometimes you have those anti-heroes that bring a different element into the story, but I think we've gone beyond that norm in today's stories.
Is there anything else related I didn't ask a question about that you'd like to add?
I think you covered everything.
Where online can our readers find you and your work?
Mark, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your thoughts on Post-Tolkien and Post-Middle Ages influence!
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