Featured Faculty/Staff Writer
Thomas Turner
Thomas graduated from CVCC in 1990, and he has played a vital role in both the Audio Visual Department and the Information Technology Department. He has served as a Polis board member and contributed regularly to our publication. He has recently published a collection of poetry, What Are Words For?, and a novel, Blood on the Badge, both of which are available for purchase in the CVCC bookstore. The following is from an interview with Thomas.
How long have you been interested in writing?
I’ve been interested in writing since childhood. I started out by writing verses out of the Bible into a little notebook that I had when I was a kid because one of my teachers wanted me to practice my handwriting. My cursive was awful when I was just learning to write. It still is at times. A group from the Jehovah’s Witness would leave their “Watchtower” booklets at my parent’s door, and I would read them, then go to whatever verses that the booklets sent me to in the Bible, and I would write those verses down. That notebook got pretty full over the years. I started writing poetry around ten or eleven and moved up to short stories, which I can’t do anymore. Everything that I write is long now, even some of my poems.What types of work do you write?
I write anything and everything, from poetry to screenplays. I’ve written over a hundred poems, about a dozen short stories, and five different screenplays, which I’m planning on turning into novels. I have just published my first novel, Blood on the Badge, with Lulu.com, and I have recently published a book of poetry titled What Are Words For? I am currently working on a new novel, The Godless Preacher. This will be my first western. I hope to have that one finished and available by the end of the year.Which is your favorite genre?
I really don’t have a favorite genre, which is pretty strange to me. I can write just about anything. It just depends upon my mood. If a certain story hits me and haunts me bad enough, I will have a need to get it out of my system, no matter how long it takes.What inspires your works?
Believe it or not, what inspires me most are my dreams and nightmares. I have always had bad dreams since I was a child. I would wake up so scared when I was little and a lot of times they would interfere with my education at school, so much at times that I did not want to go. Finally, after letting one of my teachers know what was going on and getting the right kind of help, I began to keep a journal and write those dreams down as best as I could remember. I started turning those dreams and nightmares into stories as well as into some poetry. A lot of my dreams aren’t really about me. They are of people I don’t even know, and I don’t know why that is, but it’s been what way since I was a kid. Nobody really understood it while I was growing up and it’s something I’ve learned to live with, sometimes painfully. Some of the things that I see at night would scare the hell out of most people.