About the author, P.S. Broaddus, by the author P.S. Broaddus (Now you know it’s biased!)
I was born in 1986 but, as momentous an event as that may have been in my life, I don’t remember much about it. Somewhere along the way I decided I liked stories. Stories in books. Stories in movies. Stories told by Mom or Papa, or Jose, or the many aunts, uncles, cousins, cowboys, Navajo, Mexicans or drifters that came around our table. I wanted to breathe adventure and live to write about it. Adventuring or writing.
Not much has changed.
I grew up with my brother on a cattle ranch in Southwestern New Mexico and we built and defended several forts from monsters. We found and claimed a junkyard with a particularly rusted classic truck, which we spent long hours sitting in hoping it would move. Unfortunately, it didn’t run on hope.
Eventually the pack rats that lived in the truck kicked us out and we decided to drive a golf cart instead. I don’t know who left the keys in that golf cart but I want to thank them. It was an exciting fifteen seconds for a six-year-old.
We were home schooled so everything was a field trip and milking the cows counted for PE. When it rained the dirt tank would fill with muddy water so we built a raft, floated to the middle and promptly sank.
I went to military boarding school for high school not because I was being kicked out of the house or refused to do my chores (like climbing hay stacks, riding bareback or teasing cats), but because I was mesmerized by the shiny buttons on the uniforms.
I heard a lot of rules. I wasn’t allowed to put my hands in my pockets or to stare at the sky and daydream—two of my favorite pastimes. Nevertheless, Tom Cruise looked cool in Top Gun so I decided I would be cool too. I decided to follow the rules all the way to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. But the application was longish. So I went to a small classical liberal arts college outside Washington D.C. instead. They encouraged my love for the classics and daydreaming.
I met a wood nymph from the foothills of the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina and soon thereafter asked her to marry me. She slipped and said “yes” and we have been adventuring ever since. Now we have three happy and endlessly curious boys and three wide-eyed little girls and they all make us laugh (and/or cry) every day.
I have several C.S. Lewis books on my shelf and read J.R.R. Tolkien at every opportunity. I love whimsical Mole and Rat and wise Badger in Wind in the Willows. John R. Erickson, Brandon Mull, and Andrew Peterson are great writers with excellent books.
Now you know a little more about the author. Not everything. Because you don’t know about my first dog Toby, me having the top bunk or about the time I ran away from home with a red wagon (I got hungry and came back at suppertime). I didn’t even mention Indiana Jones or being adopted or that wonder and imagination can be fed by good stories. Maybe next time.