Welcome to the 2024 ARIA Author Showcase and Giveaway Event! 

  

  

How to enter – Comment on the daily showcases to enter the daily giveaway. Comments close four days after the initial Showcase post. GRAND PRIZE drawn on Dec 5th (1 -$250, 1 -$100, or a 1 -$50 Amazon gift card. One grand prize pp) – For every showcase you post on, you automatically gain one entry to the grand prize. 30 Authors = 30 entries.    

Thom Ring  will be at the Rhode Island Author Expo.

On to the Showcase! 

 

What name do you like to write under? Thom Ring

Where do you call home? Northern RI

What genre(s) do you write? Literary Fiction

What genre(s) were you drawn to when you were younger? Was there a reason that genre(s) appealed to you the most? 

Action/Adventure

What were some of your favorite books growing up? Why?  

Books set in the world of sports and motorsports. I liked motorsports, to watch and to dream about.

What are some of your favorite books today?

Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, O Henry, and much non-fiction and autobiography

What inspired you to become a writer? 

Reading, and the time Mrs. McDonald had me read a short story I wrote in front of my seventh-grade English class - and they laughed when I hoped they would!

 

Nathan's Journal

Nathan Fears will tell you he's a football player. It's all he's ever cared about. But after sustaining a brain injury making a hard tackle for his high school team, no one is supporting the only goal he has during his rehabilitation, to return to captaining the Crusaders' defense before going on to play in college.  In Nathan's Journal,  Nathan is advised to chart his progress toward that goal - as well as his growing insight into what he's lost. What he's gained is harder to see.

 

Tell us a little about how “Nathan's Journal” came to be. Did it start with an image, a voice, a concept, a dilemma or something else? 

I worked for 30 years with survivors of traumatic brain-injury as an employment specialist. It was a challenge - but a privilege - to help someone face this unasked-for change in their lives. I learned a lot about how folks face the particular trials presented by each person's injury, which never really  could be predicted until they try to work past them.

Which scene, character or plotline changed the most from first draft to published book? 

I can't really answer that question. I learned from working with TBI-survivors not to have any expectations for what they might be able to accomplish. So, as Ian McKuen has said, I write to find out what happens. I was glad Nathan decided what he decided by the end of the story.

Which character was the most challenging to create. Why?  

Nathan, of course, as I discussed above.

What do you like best about being a writer? 

I guess, finding out what happens to people I grow to care about.

If you could collaborate with any author past or present, who would it be? What would the title of the book be? (If possible) - Give us a one sentence blurb.  

w/Hunter Thompson: Coast to Coast, Travelling Route 6:

"From the Atlantic to the Pacific, a Journey through the Real America's back street."

You can follow Tom Ring here - 

Website - https://www.thomring.com/   

 

Thom Ring is giving away copies of Nathan's Journal and Henry Hits the Ball

 

To enter, comment below →  Book recommendation time! What is your favorite book to date? Why?

(Comments are open for 4 days)