Apparently some people like to learn who someone is. Scary thought.
For the benefit of your curiosity, my name is Josiah DeGraaf and I’m an high school English teacher, the fiction content manager at The Young Writer and the editor-in-chief of Story Embers.
One day, I decided that despite these pursuits, I wasn’t doing enough with my life, so I decided to start writing short stories about superheroes in a worn-down fantasy world. This led me to finally create an author website. And somewhere down the road, that led you to read this webpage.
Funny how that works.
I write because I’m fascinated by human motivations. What causes otherwise-good people to make really terrible decisions? Why do some people have the strength to withstand temptation when others don’t? How do people respond to periods of intense suffering? What does it mean to be a hero? How do you hold onto moral standards in the midst of a fallen, corrupt world with a lot of complicated situations? Why do certain publishers insist on using end-notes instead of footnotes?
I don’t actually think about that last question a lot.
That was to make sure you were paying attention.
I don’t know why publishers do that, though.
Back on subject (if there even was one to begin with), I write because I like to explore these motivations through storytelling. What happens when you take normal people, put them in a crazy situation (did I mention I write fantasy?), and then force them to make difficult choices? That’s what I hope every story I write presents: an engaging situation with an interesting character who has to make meaningful and difficult decisions.
If you’re interested in taking a look at my stuff, click here to download my short stories. Subscribe to my newsletter to get an email every time I publish a new short story. (Or don’t: you never know what kind of serial killers you’re letting into your inbox. I’m a random guy on the internet after all.)
Finally, if you’re interested in reading about the longer novel I’ve been working on since Fall 2015, you can read the first couple chapters of Empyrean Vengeance here. I’m currently trying to find a literary agent to represent the book to publishers. Maybe some day it will even be published!
Anyways, if you took the time to read to the end of this page, first off, you’re more of a stalker than I thought you were, but second, and I suppose on a more serious note, I do appreciate you taking the time to check out my work. It’s hard to get started as an author in the modern age (not that it was ever easy: just ask Homer or Dostoevsky), and I really appreciate everyone who enjoys my writing enough to follow what I’m doing. (I appreciate most of you at least; some of you are probably internet spambots, disturbing individuals, or real-life serial killers, and if you’re one of the above, then I don’t really appreciate you. Sorry.)
In return for the time you invest reading my work, I hope I’m able to repay that by writing engaging stories that help you think about the big questions I spend a lot of time thinking about. If you ever want to drop me a line, feel free to do so at my contact page. I promise I’ll try to be nice in my replies.
