Jason Edwards

Writing is in my blood.  I actually mean that literally, because I once accidentally stabbed myself from one end of my hand all the way through to the other with a pencil.  I learned that day that the pencil truly is mightier that the sword.

The first tale I can remember creating was a short story titled "The Siamese Twin Lobster From Czechoslovakia" that I wrote for an English assignment when I was back in elementary school.  It was kind of an ugly duckling story with my own weird sensibilities throw in.  Even then, I was drawn to the bizaar, or in this case, the impossible (obviously, I hadn't learned any geography yet, seeing as how lobsters live in the sea and Czechoslovakia was land locked).  I continued writing stories and poems from time to time just for my own amusement, but the next time I wrote a story for a school assignment was in college, when I wrote a radio play for a class at the University of Delaware.  It was another weird, Twilight Zone kind of story set in a bank vault during a nuclear attack.  That play ended up being the only student-written work produced that term.  But still, I never pursued writing as a career.

Over the years, I would write when I found an inspiration that moved me to express myself, but my life gradually began to fill up with responsibilities and obligations, and the drive for amusing myself in that manner faded.  It wasn't until my daughter was born that the muse struck again.  At bedtime, she never tired of me telling her story after story.  She became an avid reader at a very early age, but she was very sensitive too, and was traumatized by an encounter with a loud, broken, constantly flushing automatic toilet (Yes, this was the inspiration for Will's toilet monster in the book).  My wife and I wanted to help her overcome the anxiety she developed as a result, but after months on end in the magical land of therapists, she was making no progress.  It was only then that, for a bedtime story, I began telling her of the adventure of a boy whose fears had come to life, and how he had to learn to confront them in order to conquer them.  That boy was Will Allen, and soon he and his adventures took on a life of their own.  I felt so inspired by them that I wanted to share these stories with the world, but I had no idea what the process was like trying to get published.  It took years of bitter disappointment and constant rejection, but I persevered, and now The Chronicles of the Monster Detective Agency have finally found a home here at Rogue Bear Press.

      To read some newspaper articles about the Author, click here,

 or go to the online site of a profile of him in the White Plains Times by clicking on the photo below