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

Patty, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

If I could change anything in my past, I might have sought opportunities to earn a living from writing a long time ago and would not have spent as much time reading books. But if I had, what would I have missed?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed writing. Growing up in a military family and living overseas in Germany and Italy, without the distraction of television, motivated me to read more than write. I consumed quantities of books. Some touched me deeply, while others provided entertainment and exercised my imagination. I admired the authors’ abilities to build worlds, expand my worldview, touch my emotions, and teach me things I didn’t know I wanted to learn. I never imagined myself as being one of them.

School assignments taught me how to entertain through words. I worked on a literary magazine and aced college courses with my writings, but reading was my escape. I lived in the many landscapes and mindscapes others created. I learned computer programming, an ancient form of coding, and worked in a German bank until I married and came to live in the United States.

When the children came, life took on a routine, although not without adventures. Writing became a lost art for me, and reading was relegated to short lunch-break snatches. We had three children and then divorced. A few years later, I met and married my current husband, who came with five children of his own. We blended our family in a blender with the top left off – a wonderful mess with multiple colors and flavors splattered everywhere. Reading? – an old friend I touched base with whenever possible. Writing? – a quick note here and there, but nothing unrelated to work or groceries.

During that time, I met and fell in love with Jesus. I’d fought belief in the God who created the universe for years. When I finally surrendered, my life drastically changed, and not without challenges. His love gradually overcame my stubbornness. He won me over, and life became richer, more colorful, more flavorful. Only then, when the kids were grown and raising families of their own, with my husband’s encouragement and a great deal of insecurity, I sat at the keyboard and wrote what would become my first published book.

I shall never forget holding that book in my hands, with its beautiful cover depicting a dolphin in silhouette leaping from the water at sunset, next to a human, also in silhouette, diving beside it. Reflections of a Misfit, with my initials and last name on the cover, had made me an author in my sixth decade. If I had known how satisfying it was, I might have started much sooner.

I have known published authors as young as seventeen and others who first published around my age. My only regret in having started writing books so late in life is that I won’t live long enough to write all the stories in my head. Since the first non-fiction book, I write science fiction and fantasy for teens, young adults, and adult readers. My lifelong reading habit has paid off in a rich, ageless imagination which I love to share.

Patty, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up as a military Brat, mostly in Europe, with no television and a huge imagination. Books entertained me and augmented my education in German, Italian and American schools. Books became my lifeline, my ties to worlds I’d never see and to people and characters who enriched my life through their stories.

My first book, Reflections of a Misfit, is just that: snippets of my own life in light of some of the scriptures I read daily. As a new Christian, I questioned everything. What were the rules? What would I have to give up? What happens when I mess up? I encountered a life filled with the realization that God loves me as I am, a unique individual, a misfit. The changes I feared happened organically as I learned to love Him back. There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter Christian. If you’re as much a misfit as I am, you might enjoy my story and possibly see a little of yourself there.

I wrote my next books as pure entertainment, and as a way to tackle some of the unanswerable questions about our amazing universe. What if there are inhabited planets interacting with Earth? What happened to Atlantis? What do the giant etchings of Nazca mean, and why can they only be seen from the sky? Do dragons exist? What if the fate of our planet were in the hands of four young people, each with special abilities, and each with his or her own struggles?

Questions about our universe occupied a lot of space in my brain growing up. When I felt the nod from our Creator to explore them in writing, a story unfolded, resulting in the Tetrasphere Series, a Teen/YA Sci-fi adventure series that explores some of the strange places on our planet along with the possibility that aliens are living among us.

The next series, Dragon Guild, to be published in 2025, takes Tetrasphere to another level when a young teen is abducted from Terra, brought to another planet, deprived of her unique powers, and must learn to exist without her family and friends. Will the power of love be enough to overcome her losses? Will new friends and allies be enough to conquer the enemy keeping her imprisoned? And will her family ever find her?

I’m Patty Perrin, writing as P.T.L. Perrin, and I’m writing books that I would have loved reading back when we didn’t have television.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Resilience is relative. If I had started writing books at a younger age, this story might not be remarkable at all. Everyone chooses their paths, which often branch and require different choices. Anything worth doing is worth learning about. No one past toddlerhood absorbs skill sets by osmosis. At the other end of the age spectrum, where I reside, it might take greater effort to learn new skills. Everyone makes mistakes along their journeys. Mine was thinking any book I wrote would somehow get published and marketed and earn a decent income. I knew I could write. What more was there to do?

My first book was finished. I had a beautiful cover, a foreword written by people I respected who had read the document, and a story filled with humor, adventures, and wisdom from the Word of God. The phone call I received from a publisher, at the recommendation of a friend, came as no surprise. Of course someone would reach out to snatch up my darling, my creative offspring, my perfect work. Hubris is a dangerous thing.

The publisher would take care of everything — for a fee. A hefty fee. Ignorance may be bliss for some, but for me it was costly. Secure in my confidence, I signed the contract and paid. To their credit, they did publish the book and provide the number of copies they’d promised. They had also promised to edit and promote it. That, they did not deliver.

As I read the printed book, my heart sank. I had read it through many times in its raw form, including once out loud. I thought I’d caught every possible mistake, and I had found most of the grammar and spelling errors. Seeing it in print, formatted into chapters and sections, gave me a perspective I’d lacked. It needed work, and I wasn’t allowed to work on it. I had signed over my rights with that contract, and it would be in effect for two more years.

There was nothing I could do, so I started writing a sci-fi, fantasy story. Having watched every episode of Ancient Aliens, and with a mind full of mythology, I wanted to write in the genre I’d enjoyed reading since childhood. Our planet has many fascinating places with no credible answer for how they got there or why they exist. Legends abound, largely ignored by sensible archaeologists and other experts. So I ran with it, and incorporated alien races and legends into the series. When it came time to publish, I had learned my lesson, and a lot more. I went independent, which suits me.

As soon as I was able to break that contract, I took back Reflections of a Misfit, revised it, and republished it independently. All my books have been published the same way.

I am blessed to have found a fine group of authors with whom I trade critiques and beta reads. A supportive online bookclub helps to promote my books while I promote others. Nothing compares to a community of like-minded, unselfish people willing to help and to recommend help where needed.

For me, resilience is not giving up. You will meet with resistance, obstacles, and even failure as you pursue your dream. If you must, set it aside for a time, but do not be afraid to pick it up again when you can. It is worth every effort you put into it.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My initial goal was personal. I wanted our grandchildren to love reading as much as I did growing up. With slight tweaks, I named many of my characters after them, hoping to encourage them to put themselves in the story. Some read the books, some didn’t. We have many grandchildren.

As my writing community grew, so did my mission. A dear friend invited me to participate in a series of book signings she dubbed “A Novel Approach to Literacy.” We held events in local restaurants and other venues. Each author shared a short synopsis of our books with the participants, who then purchased signed copies of the ones they wanted to read.

Another friend read the first book in my series aloud to her eighth-grade class during free time. It went over well, and she invited me to speak. We had a lively interaction, which they seemed to enjoy as much as I did.

Today, the world of electronics has dominated the attention of school-aged children, not to mention the adults in their lives. Still, reading is not yet a dying art form, and my mission is to encourage it as much as I can.

The same is true of writing. I often remind our grandchildren that movies and many complex video games follow story lines someone wrote. When people discover I’m an author, I often hear the longing in their voices when they tell me they’ve always wanted to write their story. I encourage them to do so.

When someone asks me to read what they’ve written, I ask if they’re open to honest feedback. Every writer starts somewhere, and without exception, we must learn to perfect our craft to the best of our ability.

Before I became an author, I was an avid reader. The two go hand-in-hand. My mission is to encourage both.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ptlperrin.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPattyPerrin/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ptlperrin/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/PTLPerrin
• Other: Blog: https://www.ptlperrinwrites.com

Image Credits

Headshot by Portraits by Emmett Fitzsimmons

Book covers by Ewald Sutter