Colonel Stephen D. Cork, U.S. Army (Retired) enjoyed a successful military career of nearly twenty-seven years. He is the author of several nonfiction short stories as well as the Jenny O’Shane thrillers “Sir, I Can Explain” and “Knight Moves.”

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 1. I’m retired military – Army of 27 years. Also retired from Sarasota County gov’mt after eight years, and then founded a military charter high school that I recently retired from after ten years. Been married to my high school sweetheart for fifty years. Have two cute miniature poodles and enjoy training them for agility events.

2. What do you do when you are not writing? 2. When not writing I’m usually doing Rotary things, agility events, or physical activities to try to stay in shape.

3. Do you have a day job as well? 3. I have retired from formal jobs. My writing is my day job now.

4. When did you first start writing and when did you finish your first book? 4. I started writing in the Army. I was last assigned a job as director of a joint group for developing war fighting manuals for Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine combat units.

5. How did you choose the genre you write in? 5. The choice of genre was a matter of looking at things I knew something about. My experience was mostly in combat which naturally led to thrillers from my viewpoint.

6. Where do you get your ideas? 6. Most of my ideas are generated by reading current events and then lending my personal experiences.

7. Do you ever experience writer’s block? 7. For me writer’s block is a time to think through how I’m going to attack my latest segment of my current book. I just don’t see it as ‘block.’ It’s usually productive time for me to think.

8. Do you work with an outline, or just write? 8. I do use an outline to set up my books. But that doesn’t restrict where I’m going to go with the story if I get creative as things move along.

9. Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult? 9. I’ve been mostly influenced by W.E.B. Griffith and Tom Clancy. Both write a lot about things I know.

10. Can you tell us about your challenges in getting your first book published? 10. I must have sent out a hundred queries for my first book. It got to be too burdensome so that I eventually self-published based on the recommendation of several fellow authors and Writers Digest.

11. If you had to go back and do it all over, is there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you would change? 11. I can’t think of much I’d change. I think it was a good move for me to self-publish and then get a publisher for my next.

12. How do you market your work? What avenues have you found to work best for your genre? 12. Marketing has been the biggest challenge for me. I’ve learned the mechanism to get into the military Post Exchanges and that has turned very favorably for me.

13. Have you written a book you love that you have not been able to get published? 13. I’m currently working on my third book and after having some success with book two (almost 11,000 copies sold) I’m encouraged to get it out there.

14. Can you tell us about your upcoming book? 14. My third book has largely the same cast of characters. It will involve the main character (a female officer in the US Army) in Afghanistan and Iraq.

15. Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination? 15. Many of the episodes related in my books are based on my experience, but much is a product of research of things I know about and don’t know all the particulars. High Altitude Low Opening parachute jumping is an example.

16. Where can fans find your work? 16. My books are on Amazon or they can email me and I’ll arrange to get them a copy. My email is [email protected].

17 Anything else? 17. You’ve pretty well covered the battlefield, Michael. Hope it is interesting.