One of the cool things about posting reviews (when a certain someone actually remembers to do them) is that every so often, the author will reach out to you Cool, right? Well, this happened to me a few months ago, after posting a review of his awesome book, Unhappenings.

I’m happy (and you should be too) to welcome author Edward Aubry in today’s Author Spotlight!

Tell us a little about yourself.

For much of my adult life I was a math teacher who dreamed of being a novelist. Of late I am a novelist who teaches math to support my family (still not making those millions in royalties, at least not yet). My bachelor’s degree was in music. That, the math and the writing allow to me to model for my students the fact that no one has to be exactly one thing. My first novel was released in 2010, and I am currently writing my sixth, with plans for many more.

How did you get into writing?

Seventh and eighth grade English class. I happened to have a teacher who pushed all the right buttons to spur an interest in writing fiction, as well as some fantastic starter tips for how not to suck at it. She actually told me at the end of eighth grade I was one of the worst student writers she had ever seen when I started her class, and by the end of those two years I was one of the best. She gets full credit for that transformation as far as I am concerned.

How did you come up with the idea for your story?

Unhappenings was originally two different time travel stories I was working on separately. One of them had to do with the central idea that every trip through time permanently changes some aspect of the past. That was partly a reaction to The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is a beautiful book, but has consequence-free time travel, in the sense that the past can never be changed. The traveler simply becomes part of events that have already happened. I wanted to push that idea as far as possible in the opposite direction. The other story was about someone using time travel not for great heroics or power, but for a simple, petty and purely selfish reason, and the catastrophic consequences that would have. Eventually I realized they were the same story from two different angles.

Who are your favorite authors?

Neil Gaiman. Lois McMaster Bujold. Dan Simmons. Mark Twain. Kurt Vonnegut. Stephen King.

If you could only recommend one book, which would it be?

Not fair! Okay, Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Apart from the fact I was absolutely consumed by it when I read it, it hits a multitude of completely different tropes and genres, and does so seamlessly in the context of a single collective novel. It’s a masterpiece of story-telling, and a great place for any aspiring writer to start in their quest for models to follow.

*Bonus * What one person (living or dead) would you share a meal with? And why?

I’m sure this is because his passing is still very fresh, but it would have to be David Bowie. I want to know what someone so phenomenally talented at pushing boundaries is like when he’s at home. While I don’t operate on anything near his level, my goal when writing my novels has always been akin to the way he approached music. Aim for the unexpected, invent new genres, perfect, move on, do not rehash. It would be utter conceit to say I do those things, but I want to, and he did. Oh, my, he did.

Thanks for stopping by, Edward! And thanks for an awesome read 😉

Edward Aubry is a graduate of Wesleyan University, with a degree in music composition. Improbably, this preceded a career as a teacher of high school mathematics and creative writing.