In the coming weeks we'll give you some insight into these creators, and give you a chance to follow these creators beyond the anthology project.

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Today's featured writer is David Fanany, a university lecturer based in Melbourne, Australia. David has been paired with artist Ricardo Parabere, whose work you can explore here: https://www.deviantart.com/rparabere/gallery/all

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<<<Your story is about Herbwardens in Bautar—what can readers look forward to?>>>
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The inspiration for this story was actually quite simple - I was reading an article about paleoclimate studies and the ways in which we can learn about the history of the Earth by studying things that are physically present now, like rocks and soil. I started wondering if you could do something similar in a fantasy world like Magnamund, and what you would learn from such study and use it for; I probably shouldn't say too much more than that right now, because it might spoil the story's point! I will say, though, that readers might come away thinking about an element of the Darklords' assault on Magnamund which is not, by necessity, addressed much in the Magnakai books. The quest for the Lorestones and the Darklands War were understandably more pressing, but the Darklands Blight is a very insidious and long-term dimension of the conflict, and I might argue that addressing that was also a way for the forces of Light to strike back indirectly.
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<<<David, please tell us about yourself>>>

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I was born in Ithaca, New York, raised in Minneapolis, and have lived in Melbourne for over half my life. I'm an engineer by training, I have a PhD in environmental health, and I teach disaster management; but my first love has always been stories. My sister and I would often imagine ourselves in a different time and place, and we would write our ideas down in epic sagas that occasionally reached almost a page in length. So perhaps it's not such a surprise that I was drawn early to the fantasy genre - you could consider my first reading in that space the Iliad and the Odyssey, but I also read the modern genre's early leaders like Lewis and Tolkien, as well as the then-contemporary figures like Terry Pratchett and David Eddings. It's definitely the genre I've engaged with the most over the years, from tracing back to the dawn era of Conan and John Carter, to contemplating varied ways of being via writers like Ursula Le Guin and N.K. Jemisin, to taking up games like Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.
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I was also drawn to the Choose Your Own Adventure books that the public libraries all had in those days, perhaps because the "you are" tone felt so familiar after my early forays into storytelling. And in a bookshop one day, I came across a curious book that seemed much like the Choose Your Own Adventure stories I was familiar with, but it was clearly a step up in complexity and depth. I flicked through rules for choosing warrior skills, resolving combat with Darkspawn, and eating a Meal or losing three Endurance points. I convinced my mother to get it, and spent the next few weeks dying in the first or second combat, because that book was The Curse of Naar and I had not registered that it thought readers might have completed 19 books before picking it up! Fortunately, I was persistent back then, and with some experience and a few more Grand Master books on the shelf, I was soon able to complete that part of the story more or less as Joe Dever intended. I found that it was the equal and more of anything I'd read in other modern fantasy - and it also hinted at even more stories both before and after it. Lone Wolf became one of the centerpieces of my personal canon of fantasy, and perhaps the setting that means the most to me.
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I never gave up on my desire to write, either, though I went through long years where opportunities were scarce. One of those that came to me involved writing about Magic: the Gathering for the long-lived fan site Pojo, and I have been doing that since 2007. But I've always wanted to write fiction, because I still have stories to tell. My contribution to the Lone Wolf anthology will be my first fiction publication, and the fact that it is coming in connection with a franchise that has been such a part of of my life means the world to me.
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<<<What's your favourite Lone Wolf book/story and why?>>>
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It's not easy to choose just one, but I would have to say The Darke Crusade. I've always liked the classic knights-versus-evil-army concept that is a backdrop to your adventure in this one, and I've always liked even more how much the book goes beyond that classic concept. The prose and the storytelling are excellent, as is typical of the whole franchise and especially this part of the Grand Master series; the passage at the end where you and Prarg are on the tower looking out over the Gulf of Lencia still gives me chills after twenty-five years. The worldbuilding is fantastic, and I especially like what we see of the Drakkarim army and society in action - I've always found them to be very interesting and exciting antagonists. In some cases, the book even plays against the classic story's tropes, with some setbacks that you'd have to count as outright victories for evil, and that could have been the ending of one of those super-dark fantasy series you see in the news. Tying those together, I've also always loved the discussions of the armies and sorcerers in Kagorst and Akagazad: it seems like a comparatively small thing in the greater scheme, but one of the things that really stands out when I think back about Lone Wolf is that the Darkland armies don't entirely disappear after the fall of the Darklords. Victories can be imperfect and defeats can be incomplete, and this makes the world feel so much more real.
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<<<Who is your favourite non-Lone-Wolf writer, and why?>>>
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Again, this is the kind of thing where it's hard to give just one name! On balance, though, I would name Edgar Rice Burroughs. There are few genre stories from that long ago that still read well now, but many of Burroughs' have really stood the test of time. In particular, I re-read the first three John Carter novels every now and then. To me, those stories really illustrate why his writing has endured: they certainly don't have a very deep psychological component, but the storytelling is extremely dynamic and attention-holding, and they have a compelling combination of genre conventions and original ideas. Burroughs' work illustrates the power of storytelling, as well as reminding us that comparatively simple things can still be meaningful.
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<<<In addition to your contribution to the Lone Wolf universe, you also collect and build Lego. Tell us about that!>>>
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This is kind of an interesting story, because like many people, I played with Lego as a child, went through a "dark age" as they say, and got back into it as an adult. When I was drifting away from it as a teenager, the Lego of that day seemed simple and limiting to me, but the new sets I saw as an adult made me feel the opposite way. It's more than modern sets and minifigures being more aesthetically pleasing than ones from the 90s (though they really are - I will die on that hill!). Seeing them made me feel like I was being invited into a whole world's worth of exploration and creativity, where the individual pieces' shapes are set but you can use them to create whatever your heart desires. It reminds me a lot of writing, and of writing fantasy in particular. We use what has come before, and we do our best to rebuild the world (as Lego themselves puts it).
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<<<What's the most rewarding thing about Lego as a hobby?>>>
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Lego has always been about fantasy, in the sense of imagination and making new worlds, things that could or should exist. Even if you never dismantle a constructed set or reuse its parts as something else, that moment when you click the last piece into place is intended to be the starting point for the rest of its time in your possession. What do the characters do next? If it's a set that uses an outside IP, what story does it remind you of, and what might you want to see those characters do next? What would happen if all those characters could just come together the way individual bricks can? (I can't tell you how many times Batman and Spider-Man have teamed up in my display!) I love the way that you can build upon the pieces' and characters' original design and purpose for whatever crosses your mind, and create something new and inspiring and enjoyable.
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We hope you enjoyed getting to know David! We're really looking forward to getting his writing into your hands!
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We encourage you to follow David on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidfanany/

Or check out some of his writing on Pojo: https://www.pojo.com/

And Prose: http://theprose.com/WesternPaladin
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