About the Author Jeshua Hicks

Jeshua Hicks

Thanksgiving was a more than welcome reprieve during my first college semester. I managed to binge-read Dune during that time. I often think of my life in terms of before and after that experience. I’d never seen characters like that before, and none since. So much self-control. So much discipline. It shaped who I wanted to become both as a person and as a write. I didn’t even know I wanted to write fiction before that. Now, I’m making it my career.

Thanks to the 2020 lock-down and ensuing chaos, along with my research of eastern philosophy/spirituality for my upcoming debut fantasy series, I’ve taken up yoga and meditation.

I’ve lived in many places across North America as well as on a yacht in the South Pacific. While living in New Mexico (a U.S. state, in case you were wondering), surrounded by the 8 Northern Pueblos, I was immersed in the region’s Native American culture.

My parents used to run Sweat lodges, a spiritual cleansing ritual. You build a massive fire and heat lava rocks with it. Then you and everyone else there climb into the hut covered in blankets, which trap in the heat. You then literally sweat out the “impurities” with the lava rocks in a pit in the middle of the hut. I never made it all the way through one of the ceremonies because I was very young at the time. We had several natives show up for them and they all said it was the best Sweat lodge they’d experienced.

I don’t know if I believe in those things anymore. I’m pretty secular these days. I also know there are far more things we don’t understand about the universe than what we do. In any case, it was still pretty cool to have people come from all over the world for that.

In the South Pacific, I was a guest at a traditional Fijian feast held by one of the island tribes in the village of Somosomo. It was the only tribe with a female chief.

The captain of the yacht we were staying on freaked 12-year-old me the hell out when we were on the dingy (small motorized boat) on our way to the feast. He told me that the tribe had been cannibalistic only a few generations ago. Naturally, I didn’t become one of the dishes. At least, I don’t think so. Maybe this is all an afterlife hallucination.

Exposure to so many different cultures around the world made me realize how much alike we all really are. We’re the same species, after all. No amount of cultural differences can change that fact.

You know the old adage, “write what you know?” Many people seem to think that means you should only write about your own personal experiences. I think it simply means you need to either experience or study the things you want to write about.

I’ve spent the last several years researching East Asian (Mostly Chinese) and South American history/culture for my upcoming debut novel.

You’ll get free access to the first five chapters when you sign up for my mailing list.