Indie Book Promo is happy to welcome Glynn Burridge, author of Kolony, to the blog! He is here to share some information about himself and his writing! If this book sounds like something that you would be interested in reading, please find buy links at the bottom of this post!
IBP – How would you describe your book in 20 words or less without using the blurb?
Glynn – Modern day travellers stumble across ancient pirate cult with taste for blood on remote island of Seychelles archipelago.
IBP – Tell me a little about yourself
Glynn – I am English by birth and grew up in Iran where my parents were working. I studied oriental languages at university in the UK before returning to Iran to become interpreter/translator and also English tutor to the children of the royal family, the Pahlavis. I continued working for them until the Islamic Revolution removed them from power and came to live in Seychelles, on one of the remote atolls where I began writing.
IBP – What are your favorite hobbies?
Glynn – I enjoy sports and play a good deal of tennis. I also go for mountain walks and work out in the gym. I own and ride a motorcycle and use that both as a means of transport to and from work from time to time, and as recreation, going for Sunday rides and the like. I also enjoy cooking, entertaining and listening to music.
IBP – Do you have a day job?
Glynn – After living on Seychelles’ outer islands for 2 decades, I came to live on the mainland and, given my experience of Seychelles and the fact that I am a writer, I was asked to join the newly-formed Seychelles Tourism Marketing Authority as chief copywriter, a position I hold until today, albeit on a consultancy basis. I also travel as a kind of roving ambassador for the tourism board, attending conferences and giving talks about Seychelles.
IBP – How long did it take you to write your current book?
Glynn – I began writing Kolony in 1993 in a flat overlooking the Thames whilst on holiday, but later stopped to write what would become my first book, ‘Voices’, a selection of Seychelles’ short stories. I returned to it in earnest in 1997 and it was published in 2008.
IBP – What were the challenges in bringing this book to life?
Glynn – Kolony is a vast story with many strands. It also has quite a complex back- story set some 100 years in the past and keeping all these story elements in line is rather like steering a stagecoach with many horses. You have to give the story its head but also keep it under control so that the various elements do not become too intertwined. Bringing the setting to life (a remote Seychelles atoll) was not difficult because I lived on one for 2 decades and know life there well, both above and beneath the waves and the characters seemed to suggest themselves over many years of writing them, although some, perhaps, a little too much. Certain characters seemed to really take control of themselves and their evolution in the story in ways I find quite alarming.
IBP – Did you do any research before start or during of the writing of the books?
Glynn – Yes, extensive research which took me from libraries and archives in England (Caird Library, Greenwich) to Paris, Nairobi, Madagascar and of course Seychelles. I also had input from a Russian journalist who was interested in the theme from the Moscow archives. Kolony has been painstakingly researched and although it is a work of fiction, I have made sure that the surrounding historical facts are tied down and water-tight.
IBP – What is the one book that you think everyone should read
Glynn – ‘The Prophet’ by Khalil Gibran for its amazing wisdom and the way it touches the very soul. This was a man who was truly in tune with the beauty and sadness of existence.
IBP – Where is your work available?
Glynn – My work is available in paperback in Seychelles and as an Amazon Kindle e-book.
IBP – What are your thoughts on e-books? (i.e. love them, hate them, wave of the future)
Glynn – Love them or hate them the e-book is here and it is destined, I believe, to be increasingly the way we digest the written word. It is the most immediate way for a reader to join his or her audience. As e-book readers become evermore sophisticated and book-like, this will speed up the process.
IBP – Are you working on any other projects except writing, right now?
Glynn – Yes, Seychelles’ Minister of Tourism & Culture has asked me to collaborate on the writing of a coffee table book about the History of Seychelles. After that, I want to write a sequel to Kolony, into which I have already written a trap door to continue the story in a different direction.
Blurb:
In 1884, descendants of an ancient colony of pirates and their brutal tribal allies capture a scientific research vessel and its occupants who are then shipwrecked together on a remote atoll of the Seychelles Archipelago, where they evolve, over time, into a heinous, bloodthirsty cult with a wide sphere of influence.
A century later, they are encountered by a divided expedition of modern-day travellers who must unravel the age-old mystery of the ‘Kolony’, its dark past and terrible secret, before they become the latest in a long line of its victims.
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Glynn Burridge is of dual British and Seychellois citizenship and has been living in Seychelles for 34 years, much of those as part of the management team of D’arros Island in the Amirantes group, 140 miles south-west of the mainland.
Having grown up in Iran under the Shah (king), he took an honours degree in Oriental languages from Manchester University before becoming commercial interpreter and translator in the Persian language (Farsi), English tutor to the royal children and private secretary to Prince Chahram Pahlavi of the Iranian royal family. Fleeing the Islamic Revolution, he moved to Seychelles and to the Outer Islands, in 1978.
Since leaving D’arros Island to live on the mainland in 1998, he has been engaged by Seychelles’ Tourism Board as sole copywriter responsible for producing written text for all Seychelles tourism’s publicity materials. He is also a freelance copywriter, the author of ‘Voices’, the popular collection of Seychelles short stories and ‘Kolony’, a newly completed novel and thriller based around the Seychelles Islands. His upcoming project is to write a history of Seychelles in a coffee-table format.
His experience of the Seychelles Islands, Creole culture and of Seychelles in general, places him in a strong position to introduce visitors to the best that Seychelles has to offer across a broad range of activities.
He is fluent in Creole, French, English and Farsi.
Glynn can be found:
Twitter * Facebook * Google+ * Pinterest
Website * Blog * Author Central
Kolony is available: