Sean Betzer

As part of our SFFWorld.com’s Member Spotlight Series, Nila interviews Sean Betzer, avid fantasy reader and aspiring writer.

Hello Sean, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to chat with me. I promise I’ll make this quick.

Sean: Thanks, Nila! I’m excited for the chance to share a bit more about myself than I usually get to on the forum threads and, hopefully, get to know some of my friends here a bit more as well.

SFFWorld: What’s your SFFWorld.com’s forum alias and why did you pick it?

Sean: I go by the alias RedMage. I picked it because red is my favorite color and I love having magic in my stories. It’s not because my hair is red. It’s brown, actually.

SFFWorld: How did you discover SFFWorld.com and why did you decide to join?

Sean/RedMage: I love fantasy, both reading and writing it and, to a lesser extent, sci-fi as well. I began writing fantasy stories about 10 years ago and, after completing a trilogy of novels (it’s not very good and it’s not appearing anywhere), I decided I needed some help to improve my skills, both from other aspiring authors and those already established who I hadn’t heard of but whose books and short stories had lots to teach me. When I came across SFFWorld.com with its reading and writing forums, I decided to stick around and see what the place was all about.

SFFWorld: What keeps you coming back?

Sean/RedMage: The people. I’ve met a lot of people through SFFWorld.com. I’ve critiqued short stories, read drafts of others peoples’ novels, decided to take a writing course at a local community college after reading post after post after post about their benefits. I’ve received tons of book recommendations. I’ve made some really great friends, two of whom I got the chance to meet both in person in 2014 after knowing them for several years online and one of which I’m currently co-writing a novel with. One of these people lives on the other side of the country while the other is on the other side of the world. If not for SFFWorld.com, I would never have met either of these two people, nor all the others I still only know through their posts on the forum, or received such great recommendations, been asked the deep and thought provoking questions that have kept me up at night, or the encouragement to finish the stories I have written.

SFFWorld: What’s your favorite book (genre or not)?

Sean/RedMage: I have two. The first is a series, The Chronicles of Chaos series by John C. Wright. I first read it in college, between classes somehow, and couldn’t put it down. Or stop laughing. I’ve read the trilogy through several times and each time I’m on the edge of my seat, the anticipation no less for knowing what is coming next than it was the first time I read it.

The other is the The Lies of Locke Lamora, the first book in Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series. I love the story and the characters and can’t wait for the fourth book to come out. What I really love about it though, is that, at the time, it opened my eyes as a writer to how the world itself, the setting of the city, its bricks and cobblestones, fields and waterways, could all be characters in themselves. It made me look at my stories and ask myself how I could make my settings so vibrant and lush.

SFFWorld: What’s your favorite author (genre or not)?

Sean/RedMage: I’ve been getting into Ben Aaronovitch of late. There is a thread in the Fantasy Forum on his latest book Foxglove Summer which I’m dying to join in with but won’t, because I haven’t read the book. I mentioned Scott Lynch, and I also enjoy Terry Pratchett, the terribly prolific Elizabeth Bear (whom I’m so jealous of for her drive and ability to write so fast), Eric Nylund and Steve Cash, whose Meq series taught me much about life, just when I needed it.

SFFWorld: What’s your favorite genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, steampunk, etc)?

Sean/RedMage: Fantasy, by far. The first fantasy I read (on my own) was the Riftwar Saga and its sequels by Raymond Feist. I continue to enjoy Epic and High Fantasy, though these days I’m drawn toward more contemporary settings, especially Urban Fantasy and Steampunk. Oddly enough though, I’m still struggling to find one of these that I truly enjoy. I seem to like the concept more appealing than the execution.

SFFWorld: Where’s your favorite place to read?

Sean/RedMage: I can read anywhere and don’t have a particular favorite. However, I do have a favorite place to write. This is a coffee shop in northeast Portland, Oregon, where I live. It’s on the corner of two busy streets, both with lots of car and pedestrian traffic. It’s a great place to people watch while struggling to find that next line.

SFFWorld: Favorite con (convention)?

Sean/RedMage: I’ve not actually been to one. Someday, but not yet.

SFFWorld: What do you do when you are not reading or messing around on SFFWorld.com?

Sean/RedMage: I have a lot of family nearby so I often visit this cousin or that, often to play games or to celebrate birthdays and holidays. I am also close to both mountains and the coast, both of which provide some great hiking trails that I want to start exploring this coming spring.

SFFWorld: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Sean. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Sean/RedMage: Thanks for the opportunity, Nila! I love being able to come to SFFWorld.com. It’s my “online home”. I must head off to that coffee shop though, I need to finish up a few last chapters before finishing my co-written novel about a young girl, fresh out of a naval academy, who winds up on a pirate ship carrying a powerful weapon that all the kingdoms are desperate to get their hands on. Or, perhaps I’ll stop over in the Collaborative Stories subforum of the Writing Forum first, and see what I can do to rescue mine and the other contributors’ characters from an enraged dragon in The Dragon’s Hoard thread. All while stealing it’s treasure, of course.