As a child in Poland, Jacek Walkowicz was always good at telling stories by the campfire. Now at 50, he has turned that story-telling ability into a paperback and e-book marketed to 13 countries around the world.
Going by the pen name J.M.K. Walkow, Walkowicz published his first book Blazing Night - a self-described naturalistic fantasy tale - to Google's Play store early last month where customers can purchase and download media such as books, music
and movies and smartphone applications.
Walkowicz describes the book, which was five years in the making, as "part fantasy, part science fiction and there's some real science in there too."
Walkowicz, a business analyst by day who lives with his family in Richmond, said he first came up with the idea for the novel in 2005 and wrote it in about four months, but the editing process took up the majority of the production time. "I was unemployed at the time and looking for work while my sons were going to French immersion school. We spent tons of time in the Richmond Public Library, and I was reading some books and helping them with their French and one day I just started writing," he said.
With English as his second language, getting the book print-ready was the biggest challenge. It was first released to paperback in 2010 and the 100-copy run was sold out at the Richport Centre Chapters. Now available in electronic format, the book has been made available to the rest of Canada
and the United States, Germany, Brazil, and even parts of Asia.
Walkowicz said he never considered writing as a career growing up, but recalled his friends asking him to tell his bedtime stories he created based on fairy tales. He is tight-lipped about the plans for his next novel he hopes to release by 2015, but hinted it might be a sequel. For more information about Blazing Night visit the Facebook page at www. facebook.com/blazingnight.
