Adam Hayes will be selling copies of his independent dark fantasy novel ‘The Blue Haired Girl’ at the North Island Mall’s upcoming Christmas showcase (Dec. 14-15) in Port Hardy.
Hayes sat down with North Island Gazette Editor Tyson Whitney for an interview about the book, stating he has been passionate about writing his entire life and that he’s written a few books before in the past, but he never actually published any of them. “This is the first one I thought was good enough to show to the public,” he said, when asked about his background.
Hayes, who grew up in Duncan and now lives in Port Hardy, took some writing classes in college while earning a degree in political science and sociology, but said his writing skills have been “mostly self taught.”
He currently works as a probation officer, but was diagnosed with cancer back in 2017, which is when he got the idea to start writing ‘The Blue Haired Girl’.
“Cancer is quite boring, there’s not a lot of things you can do,” he said about the decision to start writing the book. “I had some time to kill so I brought my laptop in and spat out a novel.”
Hayes is now in remission and said his health has been going good “so far.”
He’s currently planning several books in the series, which is known as the ‘Zoltan Chronicles’, and is working on the sequel as we speak. “Writing a book is a big process, once it’s finished it has to be edited, proofread, and then the cover has to be designed and that kind of stuff,” he stated, adding there’s no tentative date yet for the sequel.
‘The Blue Haired Girl’ follows Anni, a blue-haired slave who travels across the magical land of Decariea in an epic struggle to bring freedom to a world in chains.
“In this world, slaves are required to wear these special bracelets… magical shackles, where if a slave misbehaves they get tighter, they got hotter, they get spikes inside… I think my experience with chemo kind of gave me the idea — I was sitting there with the IV in my arm feeling trapped and I think that’s where it all came from,” Hayes said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author Adam Hayes was born in Duncan, British Columbia about an hour North of Victoria. He has always been a massive fan of high fantasy books. Ever since childhood, Adam has loved reading and writing young adult fantasy books. His favorites are the fantasy classics: Lord of the Rings, Narnia, The Hobbit and of course, Harry Potter, which he maintains are the best fantasy books of all time.
Adam is a cancer survivor and came up with the idea for The Blue Haired Girl while in the hospital receiving chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. During one exceptionally long treatment secession, he decided to use the opportunity to follow his dream and write his best fantasy books yet. Thus, the dark fantasy books, The Zoltan Chronicles were born.
Check out his work at www.thezoltanchronicles.com.
@NIGazetteeditor@northislandgazette.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
