As a lawyer with undergraduate degrees in political science
and history, you wouldn’t think Antonio Simon would be voted Most Likely to
Become an Award-winning Fantasy Writer. “Fantasy was anathema to what I did in
college where everything was fact-based,” he says. “But I had a story to tell,
and I needed to tell it.” So tell it he did – in a novel that combines fantasy
with laugh-out-loud comedy and takes readers on an adventure they won’t soon
forget.
Simon, a native Floridian who grew up in Miami-Dade,
read a lot as a child. “I also played a lot of video games that involved
role-playing,” he recalls. “They were like interactive books and influenced how
I like to write.” After graduating from the University of Miami, he earned his
law degree from St. Thomas University School of Law and went on to marry and
have two children while working as an attorney.
As busy as he was, the desire to tell stories was “like a fire in my
belly that I needed to get out.” So in 2012, he decided to embark on his
writing journey. Eighteen months later, he’d completed his first novel.
Set in a fifteenth-century fantasy world, The
Gullwing Odyssey is the rollicking tale of Marco, a reluctant hero who
accepts an assignment to deliver a letter and finds himself in the center of a
series of misadventures that make him responsible for the fate of an entire
civilization. “I love the Renaissance as a setting for fiction, with its
explosion of new ideas and scientific enlightenment,” Simon says. “It was also a
time of adventure and exploration, which was a perfect backdrop for my story.”
He admits that there is a lot of himself in his main
character. “I wanted Marco to be a sort of Everyman who’s relatable to
everyone,” he explains. “He has a simple job and wants to just keep at it until
he can retire. I think there’s a point in everyone’s life where they ask, ‘Is this
the best me I’ll ever be? Why should I reach for something better?’ When I was
in my mid-twenties, I was asking the same questions.” The thing Simon likes
best about the book is the same thing that makes it unique – its humor.
According to the Midwest Book Review, “The Gullwing Odyssey rests
solidly on the shaking shoulders of a good laugh, and that’s what sets it apart
from 90% of fantasies on the market.” The book garnered four literary awards
including first places in both the Royal Palm Literary Awards and the Pacific
Book Awards.
Since the publication of The Gullwing Odyssey,
Simon has published Transit Dreams, a short story collection; Miami
is Missing, a history of 30 places in Miami-Dade that changed the world; a
role-playing adventure game system (“R.A.G.E.”); and Tarot of Hate, a
compendium of stories of murder and revenge. He also contributed to Forgotten Spaces,
a compendium of darkly-themed poetry, and Shadows And Teeth, a horror
anthology.
Simon is currently at work on the second of what he
hopes will become the Gullwing Series. Tentatively titled The Gullwing
Colony, the story picks up where The Gullwing Odyssey left off. “Much
of the humor this time will be about what happens when people of different
cultures who know nothing of each other are suddenly thrust together,” he says.
Simon hopes his humorous fantasies will
give readers some belly laughs while delivering a more serious message. “Sometimes you’re called upon to be much more
than you think you are,” he says. “You may not see your potential, but it’s
there, so reach for the heights instead of shying away from them.”
For more information, visit the publisher’s website at
www.darkwatersyndicate.com.
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