Small Towns Big Ideas

Small Towns Big Ideas

Inspired by the many small towns I’ve seen in my travels, and by my own childhood growing up in smaller communities, I began writing novels located in these places. After having written a few, I then realized the pattern. These were stories about young men and women, usually about seventeen, starting in a current day small town, but then having the courage to step off the edge into a fantastic science-fictional adventure.

Hutto, Texas, my current home town, was the location where James’s adventures in Emperor Dad started, and included many real life incidents, woven into a solid teleportation adventure.

Las Vegas, New Mexico was where the massive road trip of Roswell or Bust! begins — starting with a Joe working at a motel, meeting Judith, and ending with an RV full of aliens.

Munising, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula, is where Jon, a teenager with a flair for design meets the garage inventor next door and sets off a flying saucer scare in Lighter Than Air.

Crescent City, California in the far north, is surrounded by the giant Redwoods that hosted the invading alien nano-machines that tried to convert Deena into their agent of destruction — but they didn’t count on the link working both ways, in Extreme Makeover.

Chamberlain, South Dakota, in Falling Bakward, was the nearest town to Jerry’s farm, and the place most in danger when he discovers a ten-thousand year old flying saucer buried under the sunflower fields, complete with an active wormhole to the planet of the Bak.

Oquawka, Illinois, beside the Mississippi River, was home for Debra, until she was pulled into a desolate future, and told that it was up to her to change history to prevent the asteroid strike. But those scientists messed up, and she was sent bouncing through past and future years until she created the legend of the Golden Girl and found her own solution to the crisis.

Ranch Exit, Utah — so small it isn’t even on the map — is the home of Dot and Ned, and becomes the focus for the reality bending events of Follow That Mouse.

Churchill Falls, NL in Labrador Canada, where it’s 300km to the nearest town one way and 250km the other, a school science club is making history in the road trip story Bearing Northeast.

Canton, Missouri on the Mississippi River was just a small riverside town with a college and its own lock and dam. When Jerry and Lil stumble into the future, they see great dangers and great hope in its future. The Copper Room

There are other novels written and in-process that might fit with these, but these give you the idea. My goal was to write stories that could comfortably sit near Heinlein’s Juveniles, hopefully on school and church library shelves.