We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Edwards a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeff, thanks for joining us today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?

My first agent was Don Gerrard. He became my mentor, my friend, my gateway into the film industry, and one of my favorite humans.

We met through a sort of odd confluence of events. He gave an interview in which he mentioned that he’d been contracted by one of the scientists from the Biosphere 2 project to develop a thriller novel involving the Biosphere. I’d just finished a novel that had required significant research into Biosphere 2 and thought I might be a good match.

I found out that Don was a fan of my favorite indy bookstore, so I did a bit of shoulder surfing to get his contact info.

I cold called him to pitch myself as the potential author for his Biosphere book. He turned me down flat but offered to take a look at my manuscript (with no promises attached). That was the beginning of a ten-plus year professional relationship and one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My father grew up during the depression. He was working by the time he could walk. Although his family were good and supportive people, he didn’t have much of what I’d consider a childhood.

When he had children of his own, he didn’t know any of the traditional bedtime stories. So, he read to us or invented stories of his own.

My favorites were his Oliver the Bear stories, about a bear named Oliver who loved chocolate milk, and a little boy named Charlie who was his best friend. Oliver and Charlie went on amazing adventures, the majority of which seemed to involve chocolate milk.

It didn’t occur to me until years later that my father’s first name was Charles, and his middle name was Oliver. He’d named both of his main characters after himself. That was exactly the kind of clever little trick that Dad was famous for. He loved word play, and tricky stories where the key details were right in front of your face but somehow went unnoticed.

Dad passed away when I was seven. My youngest brother, Eric, was only two at the time. As the one who’d loved Dad’s stories the most, I decided it was my responsibility to keep the tradition alive for Eric. So, every night, I’d tell him an Oliver the Bear story.

A few months into this, shortly after my eighth birthday, I ran into a snag. I was in the middle of telling Eric an Oliver the Bear story, when I realized that I couldn’t remember the ending. I decided that I needed to get them on paper.

The next morning, I found a spiral notebook and began writing down every one of Dad’s stories that I could remember.

That was how it started for me. How I discovered that writing is my primary interface with the world.

In the years since, I’ve written short fiction, essays, novels, screenplays, and one children’s book. I was also a columnist for a while.

I primarily write military fiction and science fiction, but I’ve been known to dabble my toes in mainstream fiction, horror, humor, and anything else that strikes my fancy.

One of my military thrillers spent two years on the Chief of Naval Operations Professional Reading List and was mandatory reading for a course at Naval War College for a while. Collectively, my books have won the Clive Cussler Grandmaster Award for Adventure Writing, the Admiral Nimitz Award for Outstanding Naval Fiction, the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for Navy Fiction, the Writer’s Digest Best Science Fiction Novel Award, and a number of other accolades.

The thing that sets me apart from other writers of military fiction is that my books are about collective heroism. Military novels often feature a character I like to call the Guy. The Guy is tall, muscular, can fight like Jet Li, shoot like a sniper, fly an F-35 like Maverick, and defuse a bomb with one eye closed.

I served in the military for 23 years, and I never met the Guy or anyone who faintly resembled him. Instead, I met ordinary men and women who work together to accomplish extraordinary things. That’s the dynamic I bring to my books.

That’s also the thing I’m most proud of. If the average soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman picks up one of my books, they’re not going to see a movie hero. They’re going to see their own reflection.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Tell people about the things you love.

Do it out loud, in person. Do it by text message. Do it by email. And, most importantly, do it on social media.

You loved a book? Let people know.

Got a favorite show, or a favorite episode, or even a favorite scene? Talk about it on TikTok, Discord, BlueSky, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube. Wherever.

Heard a song that blows you away? Tell people.

Webcomic makes you laugh, cry, scream, or all of the above? Don’t keep it a secret.

Publishers and studios pour 90% of their marketing budgets into five or ten percent of the content in their lineups. Pretty much every other artist, illustrator, writer, poet, musician, or maker depends on word of mouth and whatever marketing they can manage on their own dime and their own time.

If you want more of the things that creatives are making, help them reach a wider audience.

TELL PEOPLE.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Knowing that literally no one else in the universe can tell the stories I have to tell. Other people can write mysteries, or thrillers, or feel-good stories, or slice of life bits, but they can’t share the stories that come out of my brain, my heart, and my soul.

Only I can do that, and it’s a pretty cool gig.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jeffedwardswrites.com/
• Instagram: jeffedwardswrites
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1592389471
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-edwards-05525182/
• Other: https://bsky.app/profile/jeffedwards3.bsky.social