Dragons & Writing Fantasy: An Author Interview with Peter Maxian

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing the fascinating author of the Invisible Dragon stories, Peter Maxian.  Having been introduced to Peter's writing through Twitter, I was amazed to learn later that he's quite the well-rounded artist, as you will learn in this interview.  He's also the author of the Christina BraveStar stories, which are based on the daydreams of yours truly, and while I'm admittedly a bit biased, I think they're really beyond cool.

Peter resides in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria (yes, I'm jealous) so this interview was conducted over e-mail. 


Why did you start writing?

I learned storytelling when I studied theatre improv. In late 2009 I improvised a story about an invisible dragon for a friend of mine who loves dragon stories. She asked me to write it down, and after I emailed it to her she replied with "another one, please." So I kept writing... and the stories continue to come.

 

How did you decide to write fantasy?

Not my fault, blame my friend's deep fascination with dragons. My other interests include travel, relationships, and quantum physics. Fantasy stories about the invisible dragon are definitely more fun to write about. 

(But if you look closely the stories say a lot about travel, relationships, and the quantum mechanical concept that our perception creates our reality).

 

Why did you write Christina BraveStar books?

Your tweets inspired stories, because they evoked so clearly your unusual and very amusing perceptions of reality. The first stories reflected this: amusing joyrides into boundless fairytale adventure with a twist of Belgian chocolate. Later I found out you wrote about a character whose dreams connect her with a mythical world of gods, so the story cycle evolved: it became an amusing joyride into boundless fairytale adventure with a twist of respect for you as a paranormal author.

 

You said you studied theater improv.  Have you done acting? Can you expand on that?

My father was an actor, and later a TV director. I was the random child in some of his stuff when I was very young, at school I did pantomime (first real job) and later did a little extra work to pay bills at Uni. (Music took over as my career, which sidelined acting). 

A director friend made a good short video with me acting about 8 years ago (warning, adult themes). 

 

Can you expand on your fascination with quantum physics?

Just interested. I'm good at maths so I understand the basis of the theories easily. The fascination grew immensely when I read "The Dancing Wu Li masters" which postulates that mainstream spiritual thought throughout the history of humanity appears to symbolize the "reality" of the quantum world. 

 

Where are you from, where have you traveled, and how did you manage to travel so much?

Born in Australia, lived in Korea, Japan, England, Holland, Bulgaria, Norway, France, Turkey and Austria. Traveled mostly in Europe, but I've been to every continent except Antartica.

I'm a singer and piano player, which has allowed me to travel and work in many countries. Also worked a lot on Cruise ships (I met my wife when I was the piano player on The Pacific Princess - the Love Boat :-)

The dragon stories are a nice way of sharing my traveling adventures and how incredible the journey has been without talking about myself and boring people to death :-) 

 

 

Peter has a beautiful website with original photos at www.thedragonadventures.com and you can also check out his author page on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/peter_maxian .