Robert E. Harpold

When the Gods Are Away and The Starship, From a Distance, both published by Dark Matter INK. I also have a few published short stories, and many, many stories that will never be published.

I don’t recall an exact event, but I know I was in second grade. I had already written a series of (badly drawn) Transformers comics where the only dialogue was “Help”, “Yes”, and “No”. I wrote my first ‘novel’ in second grade, probably because I enjoyed reading and wanted to create my own stories, and sometime around then, I knew I wanted to be a writer.

If you’re looking for something a little different than what’s out there, you might enjoy my stories. Virgil from When the Gods Are Away is an unusual protagonist with his insecurities and social ineptitude. In The Starship, From a Distance, the Inorganics are not your usual AI bad guys and aren’t actively trying to kill humans.

I’ve got a couple answers. Darth Vader is a fun villain. He looks cool, he’s intimidating, and he’s dangerous. But Lindsay from Angel has a great villain arc because **spoilers follow** he has a chance to redeem himself, he is just about to take it, and then he reverts to being evil again. **end spoilers**

In When the Gods Are Away, Virgil conducts a homicide investigation in a modern world where people still worship the Greek gods and can perform magic.

I think we might be getting some answers to this question in the next few years. For colonizing our solar system, maybe humans can retain our human-ness. But since terraforming will take centuries, I think we will more likely have to adapt, either by becoming partially or completely machine or by genetically engineering ourselves to fit better in the environment.

We might colonize our solar system with machines as partners, or maybe they’ll be the ones setting up bases, and we’ll be scrambling to fit into a new ecosystem where we aren’t the top predator anymore.

For other star systems, I think we will have to change ourselves physically and mentally. I don’t think homo sapiens will be able to make trips of that distance.

I would not hesitate to go into space if I had a chance. I have applied to be an astronaut several times, but I have, practically if not technically, aged out after this last round. I’m still hoping space travel will become more affordable or that a bored billionaire will hand me a ton of cash.

Since graduating, I’ve had three jobs that have been awesome in their own ways. My first job was with Operation IceBridge, where I got to fly over Greenland, Canada, and Antarctica and take elevation measurements. So I’ve flown over both poles (but never set foot at either). I was away at semi-remote locations for weeks at a time, operating scientific equipment, flying in a NASA vehicle, and even got to wear a NASA flight suit, so it’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to being an astronaut.

The second job was operating a weather satellite (S-NPP) and a space-weather spacecraft (DSCOVR). I loved the variety of activities at that job, but my favorite part was the ‘research projects’ where I got to track down the causes of unexpected telemetry.

My current job is the one I’ve been passionate about since I was a kid, and I’ve always wanted to end up here. I design trajectories for Artemis flights to the Moon. Because of that role, I get to be on-console in the Mission Evaluation Room talking to the Flight Dynamics Officers in Mission Control during the flights. I am currently one of the co-leads of our console team, so I get to help determine the training and shift schedules and interact with the teams outside our group.

There haven’t been too many specific events that made me who I am. Most factors were long-term rather than a single event, like my parents raising me to have a strong work ethic and to love reading, and having a wife who makes me feel confident about myself, and becoming a parent.

But the one single event that played a huge role in determining my life’s trajectory was in fourth grade. Someone from NASA was going to talk at our school, so in preparation, we had a unit on human spaceflight. At one point, I asked my teacher, Ms. Schroeder, if astronauts flew in space more than once. She told me to look it up, which is apparently a standard teacher trick. So I did, and I got hooked on reading about human spaceflight, and I have wanted to work at NASA in human spaceflight ever since.

If they don’t have to be currently alive, I would like to see Lloyd Alexander. He wrote my favorite books, the Prydain Chronicles. I have loved them since I was a second-grader, and they still hold up, and I would want to tell him how much they mean to me.

With my stories, I want readers to play with the ideas presented and to feel empathy for the characters, even if those characters are a little different than the people you would usually hang out with.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam wrote a nice blurb about When the Gods Are Away, and Justine Lombardi wrote a nice review of The Starship, From a Distance. Someone also did a Goodreads review of Wyngraf Issue #2, which featured my story In the Court of the Litigious Elves, and they had a lot of nice things to say about that story (although I think they misspelled my last name).

You can find my novels on Dark Matter INK and, if you’re very specific about what you type in the search field, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other places. If you’re looking for the magazines where I’ve been published, like DreamForge and Analog, you can also find them on Amazon.

I also have a website!
https://roberteharpold.com/

Don’t do what I did and just sit in your room and write for years without outside input. Join critiquing groups, read books on writing, take workshops, and get a professional to critique a sample of your writing.

Critters.org is a great critiquing group where you can get feedback from people of all ability levels, including professionals like Jeff Cates. The Odyssey critiquing service took my writing up a couple notches. I’ve read some good books on writing, particularly a couple by Donald Maass, and I took a few workshops near where I have lived.

Also, you should have an awesome sister like Amanda Fox who will critique your stories.