My new story, Sitala, has just been published in the UnCommon Minds anthology. To celebrate, I’m interviewing some of the authors about their stories.
Today, I’m talking to Daniel Arthur Smith about The Enemy Beyond the Walls.
What attracted you to the UnCommon Minds project?
I have long been an avid reader of magical realism and the UnCommon project excels at promoting the genre.
What was the inspiration for the uncommon mind in your story?
The current dumbing down of our society inspired me to create a world where a child who possesses the knowledge of Trigonometry is unique in her city.
What are you most proud of about the story?
If I succeeded, the story is an allegory for the dangers of dumbing down and villainizing intellectualism and knowledge experts.
If you could merge someone else’s mind with your own, who would you choose and why?
My lovely wife as I find grace through her.
What uncommon mind would you like to meet and why?
I’ve had a recent fascination with Lin Manuel Miranda due to his ability to merge history and allegory into new mediums.
What’s the setting for your story?
A lone coastal city-state shouldered by the mountains and the sea.
Are there any authors that influenced your story or your writing in general?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isaac Asimov, and Kurt Vonnegut – each of the three wrote stories that directly influenced this one in tone of culture.
Which actor would you like to see playing your main character and why?
Huh. I hadn’t thought about a particular actor. In my first conception of the story the characters were East Asian, I then shifted to South American. At any rate, the protagonist is a young girl.
Once readers have read your story, which of your books/stories should they read next?
Readers are invited to read any of the Tales from the Canyons of the Damned series and next year I will be releasing a cyberpunk series set in the future where the protagonist travels up and down dimensional planes parallel to our ours in the spectrum.
Where can readers find you online?
Web: www.danielarthursmith.com
A big thank you to Daniel for taking the time to answer my questions. CLICK HERE to get your copy of UnCommon Minds from Amazon today.
Enter into the hidden world of the mind, where the laws of nature don’t apply and nothing is as it seems.
Straight from the minds of 20 UnCommon Authors come tales of tragedy, triumph, and bittersweet gratitude. You’ll find augmented realities and mental persuasion that force you to question everything. Stories of military suspense, psychological horror, dream walkers, and psychic mediums await their turn to crawl into your head.
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[UnCommon Minds Q&A: Daniel Arthur Smith by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 23rd January 2017]