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R. J. Messinger
A Varied Life
From greenhouses to engineering to the page
R. J. Messinger lives with his wife Melba, their dogs, and a parakeet in the rural countryside of Georgia, where they are both retired. They moved around the country a great deal growing up, and read constantly, using their imaginations to keep themselves entertained.
His working life has been anything but narrow. He has worked mostly in construction and landscape construction, and along the way he ran a large greenhouse operation for the State of California Department of Corrections. He has been a firefighter, an equipment operator, a warehouse manager, a supervising groundskeeper, and a construction estimator, and he served the phone company as a telecommunications outside plant engineering manager.
Myth, History, and the SCA
A life spent close to the old stories
For many years he and Melba were deeply involved with the medieval recreation group the SCA, traveling widely to events across California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, and Texas. For several years they ran a porcelain doll business, supplying shops with materials and teaching classes in sculpting and mold making. They are both drawn to ancient history, genealogy, and unexplained phenomena such as UFOs and alien encounters, and share a love of nature and the outdoors.
Why He Writes
Storytelling as imagination unleashed
For R. J., writing is a relaxing process that lets his imagination and creativity run free. Over the years he has published a number of pieces, mostly how-to articles across different publications. He first found the pure joy of storytelling inventing tales of cats and other animals as bedtime stories for his youngest granddaughter, stories that brought so much laughter he has thought about writing them down from memory.
About the Names
Look closer, and look them up
The people and events in both of his books are fictional, but many of the characters' names are drawn from historical figures and events, or from people he has known and worked with. His suggestion to readers is simple. If a particular name catches your attention, look it up and see what it truly means. It is one of the quiet pleasures woven through the series.
R. J. Messinger
Author of the Colony Ship series. Science fiction of ancient origins, first contact, and the future of humanity beyond one world.
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R. J. Messinger
Author of the Colony Ship series. Science fiction of ancient origins, first contact, and the future of humanity beyond one world.
Explore
Connect