Alvin R Mullen

I have been an avid reader as long as I can remember, starting with Dr. Seuss books. Somewhere in junior high I found mystery books by Clifford Hicks, Alvin’s Secret Code. And of course I thought they were written just for me. About the same time I saw an episode of Star Trek. Whoa, science fiction! I wasn’t allowed to watch Star Trek; we only had one TV and dad wasn’t going to miss Gunsmoke. I started looking for science fiction books. Over the three years of the original run of Star Trek I may have only seen three or four episodes, but I read every James Blish novelization. I also picked up A.E Van Vogt’s Weapon Shops of Isher, several Heinlein novels, every short story collection by Ray Bradbury, and every anthology edited by Robert Silverberg that I could find. I never thought about writing until after I was married and our youngest started school. My wife Mary, went back to college to become an English and creative writing teacher. About that same time we discovered science fiction conventions. She insisted, while at a convention in the early 90s, I attend a writer’s workshop with her. It was run by Barry B. Longyear, and I was hooked. I started writing. In ‘94 I was accepted to the two week short story class at Center of the Study of Science Fiction, University of Kansas. First day there, Professor Gunn congratulated me on my first story sale. I didn’t know I had sold anything, but it had already been printed in Fantastic Collectables. After I got back home from the class, I received the acceptance letter, a contract, and a check. Not the order I would have done things in, but I was published. From there I participated in several serious speculative writer’s critique groups, where a good percentage of the members also became published. At same time Mary and I were both associate editors on the Schoolcraft College MacGuffin literary and poetry magazine. Inspired by reading how John W. Campbell and his publication Astounding Science Fiction had helped so many of my favorite authors, I thought about starting my own small publishing business. But with a move to Florida and a new job, our children becoming teenagers, and a couple of serious family illnesses, life always seemed to interfere. Two years ago, getting closer to retirement from my 9 to 5, I secured the name Myriad Paradigm Publishing and now have edited my first anthology.