John Massa
Born:
Pen Name: Powers Molinar Connection to Illinois: I was born in Highland Park, grew up in Lincolnshire, and went to Stevenson High School in Prairie View. The main characters in my debut novel are from the fictional town of Newkastel, a suburb north of Chicago. Biography: I grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago and earned engineering and business degrees at the University of Iowa. While I work as a process engineer and project manager during the day, my passion is writing science fiction. My debut novel, ''Spartanica'', is the culmination of several year's of part-time effort mostly late at night and on weekends when I wasn't enjoying time with my wife and kids, all of whom were big helpers getting ''Spartanica'' written. When not writing, I enjoy playing board games like ''Settlers of Catan'', ''Agricola'', and ''Pandemic'' with my family and friends as well as video games.
Awards:
Selected Titles
Spartanica / ISBN: 1493717154 OCLC: 869748613 "Ty and Marcus Mitchell are average middle school brothers growing up north of Chicago until one night when they're hurtled through an inter-dimensional gateway to a parallel world defined by its multiple moons and planet-wide apocalypse. As they struggle to figure out where they are and how to get home, the boys encounter refugees of 'the last day' from the distant city of Atlantis and a mysterious girl called Bellana, the sole survivor and resident of the devastated city of Spartanica. Ty and Marcus soon learn they only have seven days to get home. But before they can leave, they must battle through long-extinct predators, track down the elusive Professor Otherblood, and rescue a new friend from certain death. Is all of this insanity just Ty's overactive imagination or are the brothers truly on the brink of being stranded on the brutal wasteland known as Spartanica?"--Page 4 of cover. |