Hilliard: During my career, I have spent much of my time in DC working with tech and defense related companies.
#Blackwind highlanders professional#
Lastly, politics runs deep through The Last Keeper and the other books in the series to follow, and I have generated ideas for several plot lines from my professional life in Washington, DC, as a lobbyist.Īthans: How did your professional time as a lobbyist in DC, or any other real experiences, influence or inspire parts of The Last Keeper? The D&D modules of the Ravenloft series and The Vault of the Drow were player and DM favorites and inspired many fun nights and memories, including the creation of one of the villains in The Last Keeper, Incanus Dru’Waith. Playing D&D with friends and family scattered through several decades really generated a lot of ideas that I could mesh into The Last Keeper, but also allowed me to go off script and away from D&D, creating unique monsters like the Antlered Man. If you are a TTRPGer, I’m sure you get this. Hilliard: Shared experiences from my various Dungeons & Dragons campaigns have always been at the heart of my work. This collection of adventures and stories became the basis for many of the protagonists and villains in The Last Keeper-and make up various parts of the realm of Warminster.Īthans: What was it about Dungeons & Dragons that most influenced the book, and what, beyond D&D, inspires your writing? Over the years, I started to memorialize certain characters, campaigns, and unforgettable moments from my time as a player character and as a dungeon master in small, campaign-specific diaries. My family started playing the game and from that time on, my love of all things sword and sorcery grew. That Christmas I received my own copy of The Hobbit from my uncle-and the basic box set of TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons game. Hilliard: In elementary school I was read The Hobbit by Tolkien in one of my English classes and the story opened my eyes to the fantasy world (and genre) in general. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”Īthans: What was your introduction to the fantasy genre, and what work of fantasy influenced you to start creating your own fantasy world? Hilliard: “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.”Īthans: Define “science fiction” in 25 words or less. Philip Athans: Define “fantasy” in 25 words or less. They built their castle not far into the countryside, guarded by his own two horsehounds, Thor and MacLeod, and resides there to this day. He lives in the city of silver cups, hypocycloids, and golden triangles with his wife, a ranger of the diamond. Hilliard’s training and education readied him to lift a quill that would scribe the tale of the realm of Warminster, filled with brave knights, harrowing adventure, and legendary struggles. His uncle helped him to learn the basics of life-and, most importantly, creative writing. Hilliard’s earliest education took place in his warrior uncle’s tower, where he learned his first words. His genius brother, whose wizardly prowess allowed him to master the art of the abacus and his own quill, trained with him for battles on fields of green and sheets of ice. His mother, a local healer, cared for his elders and his warrior uncle, who helped to raise him during his formative years. His father, a peasant twerg, toiled away in industries of honest labor and instilled in him a work ethic that would shape his destiny.
Hilliard was raised as a highlander in the foothills of a once-great mountain chain on the confluence of the three mighty rivers that forged his realm’s wealth and power for generations. Take this as a fun example of a “non-standard” (read: non-boring) author bio.īorn of steel, fire, and black wind, J.V. Hilliard sent me was so much fun, I’m just pasting it in as is. Normally I write up a little bio for these interviews, but the one J.V.
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