Zach Stivers lives with his wife in
Virginia, at the foot of
the Shenandoah National Park. He loves to tell people they do lots of hiking in
their free time, but usually they just go for a short stroll in the woods with
their dogs and then stop off for a drink or two at the local brewery. That
still counts as hiking, right? He has a degree in English Literature from
Florida State University, runs really slow half-marathons, and leads an
overly-competitive book club that reads a book a week ... or else.
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GUEST POST
Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?
When I was in third grade, I had this weird quirk where everything I did needed to have some over-the-top grandiose purpose behind it. I remember my elementary teachers would assign us five to ten vocabulary words, and instruct us that for homework we had to use each of them in a sentence. For some reason, I felt obliged to make my homework much harder than it needed to be, and chose to add the additional task of using the vocab words all in one overarching, connecting story. So each week I would turn a little two or three page story into my teacher, with my vocabulary words sort-of hidden within, instead of just writing ten simple, unrelated sentences.
Looking back now, I’m awfully appreciative of those teachers. I did this in third, fourth and fifth grade if I remember correctly. Any of those teachers could have asked me to stop, to just do the assignment as normal so they didn’t have to spend the extra time going through my silly little elementary school stories and find out if I used the words properly. But they didn’t. So, Ms. Wappes and Ms. Darbyshire and Ms Jones, THANK YOU.
Instead of that, they gave me lots of compliments and they began reading my stories out to the class, and commending me on going above and beyond. A couple of my other classmates started doing this too, and it led to us having weekly stories read out loud to the class by different students. Naturally, we kept pushing the envelope, and made the stories all interconnect, week to week, sort of like an elementary school soap opera. And my stories were definitely not the best of the class! I remember being blown away by a couple of them. But that’s when, I think, the book-writing bug got sort of lodged in my head permanently. I learned that it was more fun to conjure up some imaginary world and concoct an elaborate story than just churn out mindless sentences.
I never did anything nearly as impressive or ambitious in math or social studies or science class, that’s for sure. But since third-grade, story-telling has been an ingrained part of me, a sort-of understood trait, like having blonde hair and blue eyes. It’s in my genes, maybe. I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t want to be a story-teller, after that.
Tell us something really interesting that's happened to you!
When I was in middle school, three friends and I got stuck on a sandbar off Captiva when a massive shark swam between us and the beach. (Massive to us at the time, at least) Being Florida boys, we knew the difference between shark and dolphin, and this creature was bigger than a dolphin, and not coming up to the surface to breathe. It swam back and forth, big dorsal fin and vertical tail fin slicing through the waves, just circling up and down the length of the sandbar. We felt like it was just waiting for us to make the mistake of leaving the sandbar and entering the deeper water. I remember the tide was rising and it got to the point where we couldn’t wait any longer, and we had to book it and swim for the beach when the shark was at its furthest point from us. We splashed and stomped and swam and caused a whole bunch of commotion and all made it back safe.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure the shark was just looking for food along the shore, like stingrays and fish, not hunting four scrawny pre-teens caught having a mud fight on the sandbar.
If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?
Probably setting up an elaborate, over-complicated plan where I would write dozens of letters and then schedule them to be sent out sporadically over the next year to my wife. Initially, she would struggle to move on from me and this would hinder her ability to learn how to be happy and find true love again, but ultimately she’ll realize that her happiness isn’t tied to me, or my letters, or to anyone else but her own self, and she’ll be grateful for the extra year of goodbyes that she got to have with her husband. (Idk, whatever the plot for PS I LOVE YOU was- kinda toxic, if you ask me)
Who is your hero and why?
Steve Irwin. He was one of the most pure-hearted men in the world, and his commitment to- and passion for- animal conservation was so authentic and admirable. Seeing his children shoulder his legacy as young adults themselves now is so heartwarming! The animals deserved an advocate like him, and if all of us pursued our passion as single-mindedly as Steve Irwin pursued his, the world would be a much better place- for humans and for the rest of the living creatures on Earth.
What kind of world ruler would you be?
From my office chair, it’s easy to say that I’d be a loving, democratic world ruler who would establish a system of governance that ensured the right to food, water, housing and recreation to all mankind, then step down and set a precedent for all future world leaders…
But, based on almost all of human history, the odds are high that I’d probably easily be corrupted, fall in love with the power and the glory and rule like a tyrannical dictator that only looked out for the good of the few, and eventually would be violently overthrown.
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