Osiyo (Cherokee), Marhaba (Arabic), Salām (Farsi), Howdy (Texan), Aloha (Hawaiian), Kia Ora (Māori), My name is Anthony and I'm a storyteller. Once upon a time, I was a chubby little Cherokee boy who traveled the world as a third culture kid. I spent 18 years in the Middle East, went to University in Texas, spent about 20 years in Hawai'i, and now I live in New Zealand with my Kiwi wife and our Cherokiwi son. Life is good.
When I turned 50 years old, my wife let me quit my day job for a year to write my first novel, SONS OF THE GREAT SATAN, inspired by my teenage years of living through the Iranian revolution. SONS OF THE GREAT SATAN, became a semi-finalist in Amazon's 2013 Breakthrough Novel of the Year. It sold well for a first-time, self-published author and it received great reviews. I’m thankful to everyone who helped make that book a success, but I’m most thankful to my wife who believed I could do it. I've written a sequel to SONS called, SINS OF THE GREAT SATAN, which is stuck in writer’s limbo due to poor pockets. My third novel, ONE LITTLE INDIAN, is almost finished and is inspired by the stories I heard as a child about the only member of our family to survive the Trail of Tears, the cruel and deadly forced march of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to Oklahoma in the late 1830s. If my novels tend toward epic events of human tragedy, my short stories, flash fiction, and sketches are where I get crazy and have fun. Short-form writing is a way for me to dive into the genres that I've always loved - speculative fiction, horror, fantasy, westerns, true crime, and comedy. Whether they're frightening, inspiring, heartbreaking, or downright ridiculous, my stories are always different and always an adventure.
I'm also quite nerdly and love to blather on about all the geeky things I adore, which are mostly books, films, and music (I mean, what else is there?). I do this through my monthly "BADASS" reviews where I look back on a lifetime of nerd love. I publish my BADASS reviews first on my Patreon account, and then share some of them here on Medium for friends who can't afford to support me on Patreon.
If you care to support my writing efforts, you can check me out at www.patreon.com/CherokeeRefugee
