It’s Meet the Author Monday! Each week we meet a new author and get to know a little about them, their writing process, publishing experience, and tips for other writers. Today we’re talking to Stephen Davis, author of The Truman Show: It’s True Man!
About Stephen Davis:
My name is Stephen Davis… and I usually stop there, because who I am is really not that important.
But since you seem to be curious…
I was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. I have a B.S. in Political Science, an M.S. in Psychology, and a Doctor of Divinity degree.
And my life has been full of interesting and challenging experiences.
I began my “spiritual journey” at age 19, after reading “There is a River” by Thomas Sugrue. It is the biography of Edgar Cayce, and I immediately went to work for his son, Hugh Lynn, at the Association of Research and Enlightenment.
Then, in chronological order, I was:
~ Drummer, pianist, bassist, and musical director for “Up With People” when it first started.
~ Physician’s Assistant in the U.S. Army, including a year in Vietnam.
~ Commercial pilot for Cochise Airlines in Arizona.
~ State Senator from District 9 (Tucson) in Arizona. (In 1975, I was awarded the George Washington Medal of Honor from Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for my article, “The Government Versus the Economy,” published in Parade Magazine).
~ Commodore’s Staff Aide to L. Ron Hubbard in Scientology, and founder and first president of the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE).
~ Director of Development and teaching faculty at Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic, where I wrote my first book, “Practice Management Made Easy.”
~ Author of computer software to run a chiropractic office.
~ Losing candidate for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina (Strom Thurmond beat me when he was 82 years old!).
~ Horse trainer and ranch manager for a buckskin breeding ranch in Arizona.
~ Cook and captain of an 80-foot whale and dolphin research ship (the “Kairos”) in the Canary Islands.
~ Author of an award-winning screenplay and two books (novels) based on ten years of research proving that HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS (“Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial”), and that the so-called HIV tests can have false positive results as much as 90% of the time (“Are You Positive?”).
I had a car accident that broke my neck in 2003, and since then I have been taking it “easy,” writing “Butterflies Are Free to Fly” in 2008 and delivering my Holographic Universe Workshops all over the world. (Quantum physics has been my “hobby” for almost 30 years.) I am really honored that so many people have downloaded (and read, I hope!) this book.
I’M 77 years old with a wonderful family, including three amazing grandchildren.
I had two wonderful wives (15 years each), but I am now single and living in North Carolina.
About The Truman Show:
2023 is the 25th anniversary of the release of The Truman Show movie. If you haven’t seen the movie, starring Jim Carrey, go watch it NOW. It just might be the most important (and true!) movie ever produced.
Why? Well, there are well-known and very well-respected physicists who say that you and I are living in a holographic universe. In this book, Stephen Davis asks, “If they’re right, what difference does it make? Are we a lot more like Truman Burbank in the movie than we realize? Do we need to look more closely at the beliefs that dictate our day-to-day behavior?
The Truman Show: It’s True, Man! is a gripping, mind-bending journey that will have you questioning the reality you think you know. And, like Truman. can you break free from the confines of YOUR televised prison and follow him through that door in the sky?
Author Interview with Stephen Davis:
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- Does writing energize or exhaust you?
Both. While writing, I feel like I gain strength and power and energy. But when I stop, I am exhausted. The biggest problem is that when I stop writing physically, my brain keeps going. And, for example, if I try to go to bed right away (from the exhaustion), my mind keeps thinking of better ways to phrase something I wrote, or how to create the next section or chapter. I wish I didn’t have to sleep… or that the words stopped coming when it was time to quit for the day.
- Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
I write solely from my own excitement. I have to be excited about the words I’m putting on paper or they won’t go on paper. So, I would say, unequivocally, that I do not care what the readers want; I go strictly with my originality. BUT, that’s not totally true. My main talent lies in being able to explain very difficult concepts (like HIV/AIDS and the Holographic Universe) so that virtually anyone can understand them. Hence, I am always conscious of writing in way that is easy for the reader to read and grasp.
- As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
I had the opportunity to do a spirit animal ceremony with a Native American guide. She took us on a guided meditation and then said to jump through a white circle we would see and we would arrive in a new environment where we would meet our spirit animal. I was already convinced I would meet a wolf, so when I jumped and found myself in a pre-historic forest, I was confused. There was a dinosaur in front of me; and although I knew nothing about dinosaurs, I knew it was a brontosaurus for some reason. The only thing I could think of to say was, “Will you take me for a ride on that long neck of yours?” The brontosaurus looked at me critically and replied, “You must have me confused with Puff the Magic Dragon. I don’t do rides.”
We then had a pleasant —and hilarious — conversation with me leaning back against his front leg, relaxing. Finally, I said, “I should jump back through the white circle and go find my wolf. I obviously did something wrong to end up here.” Then I remembered that our Guide had said to ask our spirit animal to come back with us, so I decided not to be rude and said, “But, would you like to come back with me?”
Again, he looked at me askance and asked, “You really think I could fit through that hole?” Then he pointed to a turtle swimming in the lake and said, “You could ask Tortey there, if you wanted. He might even let you ride on his back.” And that’s how I got a prehistoric turtle as my spirit guide.
- What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
For my two HIV/AIDS books, I spent several years reading and researching literally almost 1500 medical and scientific studies that proved HIV could not be the cause of AIDS before I put one word on paper. With my (now) two Holographic Universe books, I spent over 20 years researching quantum physics and what physics experts were saying about our “ancestor simulation” before sitting down at the keyboard.
- How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Once I’ve finished my research and I sit down to write, I write non-stop. My first Holographic Universe book (120,000 words), for example, took me only eight weeks to actually write. But that’s somewhat deceiving, because my first HIV/AIDS book (90,000 words) was a process more like transcribing a movie. I would see and hear a scene in my mind, punch Pause on my imaginary VCR, transcribe what I saw and heard the characters say (especially during the courtroom scenes), and then go on to the next scene. So, although I was creating the action and dialogue like I was writing a movie, I felt more like I was “channeling” the written words into my computer from the imaginary VCR. (Yes, this was way back in history when we still had VCRs.)
- What time of the day do you usually write?
I’m a night owl. I much prefer to work and write in the evening into the night. When I’m in writing mode, I might start in the afternoon and go until 2 AM or so. Then I’ll sleep until Noon. That’s one advantage of being retired: you can set your own hours.
- Do you hear from your readers much? What do they say?
I wrote my first holographic universe book, Butterflies Are Free to Fly, in 2010. It has been downloaded over 100,000 times as a free ebook. I still get emails from all over the world from readers who have questions or simply want to thank me for writing the book. I am hoping to equal that success with my new Holographic Universe book, The Truman Show: It’s True, Man!
- Have any of your books been made into audiobooks? If so, what are the challenges in producing an audiobook?
Yes, two books are available as audiobooks. Butterflies Are Free to Fly is an audiobook I recorded. But my favorite is Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial. My son was a sound engineer who lived in Hollywood, and he gathered a dozen wannabe actors and actresses and we created more of a radio play than a typical audiobook, with different people reading different parts. It made a powerful courtroom drama done that way.
- Favorite quote (doesn’t matter the source)
This is the only radical thinking that you need to do.
But it is so radical, it is so difficult,
because our tendency is that the world is already “out there,” independent of my experience. It is not.
Quantum physics has been so clear about it.
~ Dr. Amit Goswami
- What’s your favorite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
Lake Tahoe. And that’s saying something, because I have lived in some very beautiful places, like the island of Ibiza and the Canary Islands. But Tahoe has this energy and beauty that I resonate with, and it is also where I wrote my first HIV/AIDS book, Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial.
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