Last week when I was putting the Q and A post together, I realized that I haven’t been talking much about the group of people who are making the sequel possible: that is, the wonderful folks at Adventure Worlds Press!
Adventure Worlds Press releases fringe titles including horror, science fiction, short story collections, and more! Founded in 2016, they are based in LaSalle, Ontario. And who are the people behind this press, exactly? Meet publishers and authors extraordinaire, Christian Laforet and Ben Van Dongen!
Christian Laforet
Raised on a steady diet of horror movies and cheeseburgers, there are two things Christian Laforet knows: how to scare people and that a massive heart attack is nigh. Having foolishly gone to school for animation, which he was just so-so at, he realized one day that animation is hard, too hard. And, since he was quite soft (again, cheeseburgers, folks) he decided to try his hand at writing. Of course, when he wrote his first story, he was saddened to see that it was near-incomprehensible nonsense. It turned out writing is hard as well. But, being too old to try anything else, he decided to stick it out. Over the next few years, he managed to hook up with some other lazy bums, and they made a thing. Specifically, they made Adventure Worlds Press. Feeling pretty good about that, Christian patted himself on the back (not an easy feat after oh so many cheeseburgers) and got on with making more words. He’s had several books published (some co-authored) as well as a handful of short stories picked up by various anthology collections. He is working on his second novel (the first is in the dreaded purgatory known as…re-writes (dun dun DUNNN!)) and expects to be collecting his acceptance trophy for the first ever Nobel Peace Prize for a horror novel some time in the next few years.
Ben Van Dongen
Ben Van Dongen is not a robot powered by coffee. He was not programmed by a failed cosmonaut scientist from the future and sent back in time to save the word from an invasion from itself caused by video games and politics colliding in what some have called the worst best game that no one has ever played.
He is a human boy with dreams of going into space, but with none of the boring, dangerous, or scary parts (unless they are for the sake of drama and add something to the story). He is happiest when he’s not working, but feels unfulfilled when he does anything else. If he weren’t so lazy, he would have conquered the world by now given it up in glorious self-sacrifice, returned to right the wrongs of his successors, and finally figured out a way to meet the scientist who didn’t make him (because he is not a robot).
He wanted to make movies because as a human child, good movies would stay with him and keep him company when he couldn’t sleep at night. Then, he realized that making movies required other people and he didn’t want to let them down by not fulfilling his role as screenwriter. Incorrectly thinking that writing books was a solo task, he changed to that then spent the next twenty-years failing.
In 2013, he got together with some human friends and they decided to try again for the hundredth time. They wrote short stories and put them on the internet thinking that it would make them look cool. It didn’t but they kept at it and eventually wrote books that they release themselves. That’s how a group of plucky friends (the human kind) made Adventure Worlds Press.
Since Ben likes short books and working just enough to keep the bad feelings at bay, he started a novella series. The third book was just released in April and is the best thing he’s written, as the latest thing properly should be.
He likes doing layouts even though they are tedious. While he can position words and images on a page, he can’t make the images himself. The words, he can take or leave.
Currently Ben is working on a novel about the Earth being invaded and it’s not a training exercise for when the real thing happens and he fails to fulfill the programming given to him by the cosmonaut.
In Conclusion
And there you have it! A brief overview of Adventure Worlds Press. As you can probably tell, these guys are a joy to work with and I’m super excited to be publishing with them! You can check out all of the Adventure Worlds Press titles on their website. Christian just re-released his short story collection, The Space Between Houses, and Ben’s new book Broadcast Wasteland is available as well!
See you next week for another update on A Place That Used to Be!
brittni in ink 
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