Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?
My name is Emmanuel M Arriaga and I’m a Philly native who moved to the west coast to take a job in Silicon Valley. I hold a Master of Science in Information Science from Pennsylvania State University and have a background in engineering with several publications for new technologies. I’ve been a lover of science and technology since I was a small child and regularly daydreamed about fantastical space adventures which ultimately lead to the creation of my first novel Foundra, a sci-fi space opera filled with breathtaking magic and mind-bending technology.
What is something unique/quirky about you?
I used to make anime music videos (AMVs) when I was in high school and college and I’m a huge fan of well done, high quality AMVs. That early hobby helped me learn a lot about tools like Adobe Photoshop and Premier and bult some fundamental skills in graphic design and video editing that have been surprisingly helpful. I still use these skills today, although I don’t have the time to make AMVs anymore. I also build my own computers and am a tech enthusiast.
Tell us something really interesting that's happened to you!
I got the opportunity to go to South Africa for the first time through work a few years. It was a humbling experience, and I was taken all over Johannesburg and Cape Town over the course of two weeks. I was immersed in the culture and learned a lot about history of the country. We had armed security guards with us the entire time, which was a surreal experience for me. They wore plain clothes and carried concealed handguns. Thankfully, our time there was largely uneventful outside of a few hurried exits from areas that they had deemed unsafe.
What are some of your pet peeves?
It annoys me greatly when people downplay or trivialize other people’s lived experiences. I think it’s important for us to acknowledge their experiences, especially when they are different from our own. This is exceedingly true when the person is of a different gender or ethnicity from us.
Another pet peeve is people who don’t read, particularly when they take a stance on something but then don’t understand the topic at any real level. It’s laughably embarrassing at a minimum, extremely dangerous at the extreme.
Where were you born/grew up at?
I grew up in South Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. My family eventually moved to the country in Lancaster where I graduated from High School. It was a drastic shift for me but it gave me an appreciation for quiet and the outdoors. I can’t imagine living in a city now and prefer the suburbs with lots of trees and grass around.
If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?
I’d spend the day with my family: my wife and two young boys. I’d try to have as many experiences with them as possible, making sure to record everything for them for when they would be old enough to process it. I’d want to leave them something to remember me by since I wouldn’t be there for them to grow up. I’d write a detailed letter to each one of them to open when they were adults as a final goodbye to them with advice that I wouldn’t be there to give them. I’d make sure to personally put them both to bed and read them as many stories as they wanted. I’d then record short videos to all my close relatives and friends and send it to them before spending the last moments of my life with my wife.
