Author Spotlight – Interview with Jason DeGray
Jason DeGray describes himself as an Imagination Wizard. He believes in the magic in all creative endeavors and their potential to capture imagination in a way that can change the world. He is a professional editor and two of his books have been finalists in the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. The Ruined Man was a finalist in 2017 and 3VE was a finalist in 2023. He lives, laughs, and loves in the Land of Enchantment.
Q1 – What is the name of your latest project? Tell us more about why you embarked on this project. If a writer, share your synopsis.
I am currently working on a project called Quad City Blues. This is a working title, but one that I love so much it will probably find its way onto the cover. I embarked on this project because of a firm belief that our world is defined by stories. Whether it’s a personal narrative or a collective one, stories are what give us identity and ultimately purpose. QCB is a project that strives to showcase that fundamental belief and the characters within it struggle with how their reality is shaped and changed by the stories around them.
The setting is a distant solar system terraformed and colonized by a mysterious people known as the Pyoneers. These progenitors created the life that populates the planets they terraformed and ruled over them in the distant past. After a cataclysmic event the Pyoneers disappeared and have been gone for over 2000 years. At the time of the first novel, the main characters are faced with strange events that are initiating changes in the world around them and are awakening things thought to be nothing but myths and legends.
Q2 – What inspired you when you encountered struggles along the way?
I find inspiration in the knowledge that something bigger than myself, and all of humanity, is out there somewhere. When I look at our world and the nonsense that is going on in it, I can be tempted toward hopelessness and despair. So I have to remind myself that everything is a story and I am the author of my own myth, the same as everyone else. It is the power and sovereignty of the individual that inspires me, and I find the stories of others can often shed light on my own struggles.
Q3 – Have you ever traveled as research for your work/project/story?
Only in my head. I tend to set any stories written in “this” world in my immediate vicinity. New Mexico is a beautiful place full of magic and wonder.
Q4 – How has your lived experience influenced your work/project/story?
I bring my personal narrative and the understandings I’ve gained from living it to every project I undertake. It’s more than just narrating a psychodrama, however. Sharing what I’ve learned is the most important thing I can do as a writer.
Q5 – What do you want readers to take away from your work/project/story?
I want my readers to be engaged, inspired, and challenged by what I’ve written. I want them to step out of their comfort zones and explore new horizons.
Q6 – Do you believe books can inspire social change? How?
I do. Like I said above, everything is a story. Books are the first line of narrative change. The world changes with ideas that are spread, not with force or violence. Books are the houses of new ideas and present things in a way that is approachable.
Q7 – Anton Chekhov said, “The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.” What is your opinion of this statement? How does it coincide or conflict with your perspective of the world?
We are the authors of our personal stories. So the world is filtered through our individual narratives. These perceptions alter how we see the world and everything in it. We can only make sense of things based on our own experiences and understanding. And while this is a wholly subjective process, it can perhaps point us toward objective understandings.
Q8 – What personal experience had the greatest influence on your worldview?
Definitely my encounters with the paranormal. If a person has never had an experience with something of this nature, it is easy to dismiss as fantasy, delusion, or imagination. But once it enters a person’s life, it becomes real and nothing anyone says can convince them otherwise. I don’t care if no one believes what I’ve experienced, I know it’s real and something outside of “us” exists.
Q9 – What perspectives or beliefs have you challenged in your work/project/story?
The world is full of wonder and things we can’t explain. I want people to see this fact. And I also challenge the notion that any one narrative is “true.”
Q10 – How do you see the relationship between writing and culture? How about the boundaries between fiction and reality?
Writing and culture: in the past, writing has shaped culture. Books are the progenitors of ideas, both positive and negative, and our reaction to these ideas drives our understanding of the world around us. They also shape how we define the world we live in. This is a good thing, but also a bad thing. We have to be careful that we don’t identify with things given to us from outside ourselves. That is a big cause of the problems we face today.
People take the narratives they are given and think that they are their own, when nothing can be further from the truth. Be conscious of the fact that everything is a story and let that realization guide you. Fiction and reality: Philip K. Dick had an interesting idea that his stories weren’t fiction, but actually glimpses into alternate lives. I like that idea. If everything is a story, then all those stories are fiction as well as reality. It seems like a paradox because it is. What we are told is “truth” is just a fiction everyone has agreed upon. It is up to the individual to author their own story.
Q11 – To what extent can fiction affect or improve the developments in science and technology in human life? What about religion and politics?
Look at how science fiction has influenced our technology. Look at how cyberpunk has influenced the corporate dystopia we live in. All of these innovations and movements aren’t born in a vacuum, they are created by people daring enough to give form and voice to them.
Q12 – Eckhart Tolle said, “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” In your opinion, what is the next step and how can writers affect this?
I think I’ve already answered this. Hahahaha. The next step is to bring those challenging narratives to the forefront of society. To get people to engage with them. And to ultimately inspire people to be the change they want to see.
Q14 – Intolerance and divisiveness are prevalent across the globe. Our voice may not be loud enough to right every wrong, but it is enough to make a difference one person at a time. Small acts move mountains. What one thing would you ask your audience to do to help inspire social change?
I ask my audience to pay attention to what is theirs and what is not. Which of their ideas, beliefs, etc. come from within as part of their individual stories and which are put there from outside influences. This has to be the first step: to know what is ours from what is not.
Q15 – Pick 1-3 social issues that are most important to you. Explain why you picked these and how we can help raise awareness/impact change.
See question 14. I think that people are too caught up in things that aren’t real. No matter what side you choose to take, there is a narrative for it that reinforces it and traps people in self built echo chambers. Unity can’t come from division.
Q16 – Maya Angelou said, “I did then what I knew how to do, but now that I know better, I do better.” We have all made choices that we regret. We are all flawed humans. Together, we are experiencing this human story unfolding. Share a transformative experience where you learned from a mistake. How do you actively choose to make better choices?
When covid hit I quickly succumbed to despair and hopelessness. It seemed like everything was falling apart and a terrible darkness was falling over our world. I kept wallowing in this self-imposed darkness until early in 2023 when I was on a hiking trip. We had gotten off the beaten path and were trudging through some pretty wild country. I thought we were lost and the people with me started freaking out. I snapped.
Suddenly, all the darkness I’d been harboring exploded from me in a great outcry on top of the mountain. I bellowed all of my frustration and anger at the world and it resounded off the mountain itself. Afterward, I felt purged. I realized that none of what I had inside actually belonged to me, that I had taken so much of what didn’t belong to me and made it my own. I kept adding to it until the burden became too heavy to bear.
All of it had taken a toll on my life, my health, my relationships. I couldn’t carry it anymore, but was afraid to let it go because I had identified with it, made it “who I was.” All of that filth left me that day and I quit listening to the narratives and started focusing on my own. That has made all the difference.
Q17 – Challenge readers and listeners with action steps to increase engagement with identifying hashtag and @mention.
@jasondegray #writing #inspiration #spirituality #author @theruinedman #scifi #fantasy #read
Connect with Jason DeGray
An author is only as good as their audience. Support this amazing writer by connecting with them and checking out their books.
Link for 3VE: https://www.amazon.com/3vE-Jason-Degray/dp/1734070587
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jason-DeGray/author/B002VU4AEE
If you want to hear my guests’ stories in their own words, check out our video interviews on my Story Unfolding YouTube channel. Be sure to go subscribe to hear about Isaiah and other authors, creators, and entrepreneurs who are making a difference.
Join Story Unfolding
If you want to be featured in my Story Unfolding blog or YouTube channel, contact me and let me know what awesome work you do! You can schedule all of our meetings here, but please shoot me an email at michaelcamarillobooks@gmail.com if you want to be featured, so I can send you the appropriate documents.
Read more, Write mindfully!
