Prophet's Debt by Robert Creekmore

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Welcome to It's Raining Books. Why do you write in your genre?

I can’t rightly say I’m sure what my genre is. This is my second novel, but it’s my first one to be traditionally published. Afiri, my first novel, was firmly science fiction. Prophet’s Debt, however, is a completely different type of monster.

It’s a coming-of-age story, dark horror, adventure, fantasy, thriller, backwoods survivalism, superhero origin, cult-murdering, white supremacist slaying, revenge epic ignited by an abused girl. But most of all, it’s a love story. Just remember that during the parts that repulse you to the point of wanting to throw it across the room.

What draws you to it?

Because I’m a huge fan of sci-fi, I figured it was my genre. But in a lot of ways, that was just me contorting myself into a mold I found comfortable. With Prophet’s Debt, I let what was baking inside of my brain pour out completely unrefined by expectation or decorum.

What research is required?

I didn’t have to because I’ve lived a unique life, by circumstance, and later, by what I at least tell myself is choice. I didn’t grow up in a suburb orbiting a large city. Rather, the world I started in was an isolated stretch of northeastern North Carolina. I had a shotgun in my hand by the age of six and my own single-cartridge Sears and Robuck 4.10 shotgun by eight. Hunting, fishing, and boats were just a part of my regional education. A few months after getting married, my wife and I moved into a remote cabin built-in 1875 under the shadows of the Black Mountains. It was rudimentary. There, I applied what I learned down east, and picked up new skills from neighbors. Some are more fun than others, like making moonshine, for instance.

The world my protagonist, Naomi Pace, lives in, and the mythology that underpins it, were both crafted by these formative experiences and settings.

Name one thing you learned from your hero/heroine.

I didn’t so much as learn from my protagonist as I learned better what perspective to take when writing. In my first novel, I wrote it as though I were an omniscient storyteller. My first draft of Prophet’s Debt was similar. After reading it, Kisstopher at Cinnabar Moth Publishing offered me the chance to publish it if I rewrote it in the first person. This was not an easy process. But this go-round, I attempted to put myself in Naomi’s body and walk around a three-dimensional version of her world in my head. I don’t think I would have harnessed that ability without using the first draft as training wheels. Now it seems second nature.

Do you have any odd or interesting writing quirks, habits, or superstitions?

I’m not superstitious. The most unusual bit about the way I write is that it’s almost exclusively late at night.

Are you a plotter or pantser?

I’m a sculptor. The story already exists, I just chip away until it’s exposed.

Look to your right – what’s sitting there?

A Kobo e-reader

Anything new coming up from you? What?

Yes, several things. Prophet’s Debt was released on July 5. But that’s not the end. It’s a trilogy. I’m halfway through with the second book, which will come out in the summer of 2023, the third title will hit shelves in 2024. I also have a supplemental novella I’m hoping to have time to write.

Do you have a question for our readers?

If you had to choose between living in the world of Star Trek or Star Wars, which would it be?

At fourteen, Naomi Pace knows she loves her best friend, Tiffany. During the Perseid meteor shower of summer 1993, she finds out Tiffany feels the same, just as they’re outed.

Naomi is sent away to a conversion program in the remote Appalachians of North Carolina, knowing nothing of the horrors that await or the strength they will catalyze.

Escaping into the frigid wilderness, she forges her own destiny. Trapped in hiding, Naomi fights to conquer fear and find her way back to Tiffany.

Taking bloody vengeance to end a cult that tortures and murders children seems impossible, but so is having the guidance of a mythic creature of strength and violence.

Those who hurt Naomi as a girl will come to fear the woman she has become and the path she will tread to find revenge, safety, and Tiffany.

Read an Excerpt

When I awake, my face is swollen and my head throbs with each heartbeat. I hear the muffled sounds of a woman singing hymns. It is the voice of Shelby Howell, the pastor’s wife. I hear the clank of dishes and the water running. Shelby is the kind of person who likes to occupy herself with chores during a crisis.

I sit up and attempt to swing my legs off the right side of the bed. My arms are snatched back with a clink and rattle. Both of my wrists have been secured to the bed with medium gauge chains, no more than a yard in length. The links have already left marks on my skin. The padlocks holding the loops of chain around my wrists clatter when I moved. I hear the water in the kitchen stop running, followed by the high-pitched snap and clap of cheap flip flops. Mrs. Howell is a woman in her late sixties, short, round, and pale. She has a shitty perm, which gave her hair the appearance of a puffy white helmet.

As Mrs. Howell enters the room, she comments, “I thought I heard you wrestlin’-bout.”

“Where are my parents?” I ask.

“They’ve gone out of town with Pastor Howell.”

“Why?”

“They’ve gone to get help for you.”

“I don’t need help.”

About the Author:

Robert Creekmore is from a rural farming community in Eastern North Carolina.

He attended North Carolina State where he studied psychology. While at university, he was active at the student radio station. There, he fell in love with punk rock and its ethos.

Robert acquired several teaching licenses in special education. He was an autism specialist in Raleigh for eight years. He then taught for four years in a small mountain community in western North Carolina.

During his time in the mountains, he lived with his wife Juliana in a remote primitive cabin built in 1875. While there, he grew most of his own food, raised chickens, worked on a cattle farm, as well as participated in subsistence hunting and fishing.

Eventually, the couple moved back to the small farming community where Robert was raised.

Robert’s first novel Afiri, is a science fiction love letter to his childhood hero Carl Sagan. It was nominated for a Manly Wade Wellman award in 2016.

Robert’s second novel is the first in a trilogy of books. Annoyed with the stereotype of the southeastern United States as a monolith of ignorance and hatred, he wanted to bring forth characters from the region who are queer and autistic. They now hold up a disinfecting light to the hatred of the region’s past and to those who still yearn for a return to ways and ideas that should have long ago perished.

Website: https://robertcreekmore.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/RobertCreekmore

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1136405
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Debt-Robert-Creekmore-ebook/dp/B09TZNZPZ9/ref=sr_1_1">https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Debt-Robert-Creekmore-ebook/dp/B09TZNZPZ9/ref=sr_1_1
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prophets-debt-robert-creekmore/1141121648?ean=9781953971418

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