Ben Blackstump is the pen-name of DJ Chamberlain, a notoriously camera-shy gaijin who lives in Sapporo, Japan. Stuck in the house with him is his family and their cat, Tom, the terror of keyboards everywhere. By day DJ is an ESL teacher, an editor, an amateur artist, and an ardent cook. In between all that, he somehow finds the time to write of a variety of flavours of fantastic fiction, most of them messily jumbled together.

DJ was born in Adelaide, Australia, and spent most of his formative years buried in books that talked about more exciting places – deserted isles, African plains and jungles, Hyperborea, Egypt, Middle Earth, and Medieval Europe. He started work at a young age and has, over the years, received remuneration for work done as a gardener, a cleaner, a cook, a charity collector, a baker, a door-to-door salesman, a waiter, a gas station attendant, a tutor, a bartender, an office assistant, an ESL teacher, a freelance editor, a freelance writer, a translator, and an English teacher. His primary occupation, however, has always been writing.

Some of the earliest books I remember reading were The Magical Faraway Tree, The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Treasure Island, and Robinson Crusoe. Later on I got into Agatha Christie. I think the first book I ever bought with my own money was Christie’s Sparkling Cyanide. Wilbur Smith was another early influence. I remember getting kicked out of a history class in eighth grade for reading one of his books in class. What can I say, even though I love history, Smith’s tales of high adventure on the diamond fields of southern Africa were a lot more alluring for a 12-year-old.

The first real fantasy I got into was The Belgariad by David Eddings. I read most of his books, even going so far as to buy The Rivan Codex, his book about getting into writing. It was him who introduced me to Tolkien.

It wasn’t until after I came to Japan that I started reading Science Fiction. If it was around when I was growing up, I never saw it, and I spent a lot of time in libraries. When I got here, there just weren’t that many books available in English, and most of those were off the best-seller lists in New York. Fantasy and Sci-fi weren’t making those lists in those days. I did manage to find the first three books of the Harry Potter series in the discount bin in a big bookstore before the movies came out and made them famous, and expensive.

I was introduced to sci-fi by an expat American who owned a second-hand bookstore that bought and sold books in English. He also imported cartons full of used books from America. When I couldn’t find any fantasy I wanted to read, he suggested I try Larry Niven’s Ringworld. That got me hooked on sci-fi and I bought as much of it as I could afford. I even subscribed to various of the fantasy and science fiction magazines, as well. I didn’t really enjoy them as much. I much prefer longer stories, preferably series, where I can get to know the characters really well.

Somewhere in there I was introduced to Conan, Ffafrd and the Grey Mouser, and the man from Melnibone. I read the books, but I think the Conan movies had just as much of an influence on me, both the good ones and the bad ones.

Gladiator isn’t the first book I wrote, though it was the first book I published. In fact, I remember sitting in the back seat of the car on a long road-trip when I was still only ten or eleven and coming up with the complete outline of a time-travel story. I’ve still got that outline somewhere. In fact, I’ve got a filing cabinet half-full of stories hand-written in old school notebooks. Somewhere around here I’ve got a print-out of the first novel I wrote, an epic story that blended fantasy and science fiction. It was a massive tome. It took me ten years to write, probably because I spent a lot of time creating maps and writing both an encyclopedia, the start of a dictionary, and a treatise on magic, all as background for the novel. That was Tolkien’s influence. 🙂

I now have dozens, maybe hundreds, of story seeds, partial drafts, and un-edited stories sitting on my computer. One of these days I’ll get around to dragging the worthy ones out into the light of day. Or maybe not. The new idea is always the juiciest.