Meet Michael Haspil

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Haspil.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Michael. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
At my core, I’m a storyteller. I started writing stories to entertain my classmates in fifth grade. At the time, I was at New York Military Academy and there wasn’t a lot to do in our downtime but read, write, and play role-playing games (mostly Dungeons and Dragons, but also Star Frontiers and some other games). My friends and I created our own worlds populated by horrifying creatures who would stalk the grounds of the Academy in the dead of night and, of course, only we cadets could stop them. I will be forever grateful for those years. I spent my time haunting the stacks of the library reading everything I could get my hands on. I fought alongside Howard’s Conan and Burroughs’ John Carter, battled my way through Mallory’s LE MORTE D’ARTHUR, and relished Pyle’s Robin Hood tales.

Then, I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien and nothing was ever the same. As an army brat, I moved a lot and didn’t make friends easily. But the stories never went away. Once in high school, I wrote for the school’s literary magazine, SLANT OF LIGHT. I even won a fiction writing contest for a pretty insane Robin Hood time-travel story. Then I joined the Air Force and my writing took a back seat for a long while. A few years later, I re-engaged and wrote several screenplays. I tried to secure an agent, but that industry is notoriously hard to break into. Time moved on and I continued to dabble here and there.

In 2009, I decided I would get serious. I had a screenplay idea I thought was fantastic, but I knew it would never get made. At the urging of author Michael Stackpole, I decided to write it as a novel during National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO). I completed the novel in time and tried to shop it around. I was very naive.

Luckily, I discovered the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) and the Pikes Peak Writers (PPW). Through those organizations, I met my critique group, the Highlands Ranch Fiction Writers. They helped me hone my craft.
At a Colorado Gold Conference (hosted by RMFW), I met my future editor, Moshe Feder of TOR. He offered for my book. After many rounds of revisions, I also finally got to work with my dream agent, Sara Megibow (of KT Literary agency). TOR published my debut novel, GRAVEYARD SHIFT, about an immortal pharaoh battling an ancient vampire conspiracy in modern-day Miami, in 2017. Critics received the novel well and it was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Now I’m currently at work on some completely different stories, but fans of GRAVEYARD SHIFT need not fear as I’m also working on sequels, prequels, and spinoffs set in that universe.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. It has been extremely rough. The path to publication was exceedingly rocky and took far longer than I would have guessed. Even after my debut novel was out in the world, it has been a lot harder than I thought to get more of my work out to the public. I’m hoping to get several works out before this year is through.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
Well, I’m a writer first and foremost. Even in my day job, that’s what I do. Although my day job isn’t as exciting as writing about secret societies, mummies, and vampire conspiracies. But I also host a pop-culture story analysis podcast named “Quantum Froth Dispatches” and I’m a regular contributor to “The Long War” podcast which focuses on Games Workshop’s Warhammer miniatures games.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Well, it depends how far back we want to go. One of them for sure is from sixth grade when I finished reading THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and when I brought it back to the library, I told the librarian that I couldn’t wait until the next one came out. He walked back into the stacks and came back out with the rest of the LORD OF THE RINGS. That was a good day. It may seem like a mundane memory but it is hard to describe how much joy those books have brought me throughout my life. I used to sit and draw the maps from memory and even tried to teach myself Sindarin!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.michaelhaspil.com
• Facebook: @MichaelHaspil
• Twitter: @MichaelHaspil
• Other: https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/qfdpodcast

Image Credit:
New York Comic-Con photo: From left to right – Dr. Tony Medina, Michael Haspil, Ethan Young, Cerece Murphy, Shawn Allen, and Diana Pho, Stage Panel: Left to Right – Brandon Sanderson, Brian McClellan, Michael Haspil, M.K. Hutchins

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