Opal Wine (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781475093506)

Born in late 1954 in Easthampton, New York, Alan Loewen is the product of a long line of German Mennonite farmers on his father's side and a long line of Episcopalian whalers and fishermen on his mother's side. In his early years, Loewen became an avid reader, devouring fantasy and science fiction as fast he could read. His favorite novels to this day will always be H. G. Wells War of the Worlds along with Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Loewen knows that his writing did not originate in a vacuum and acknowledges he stands on the shoulders of giants who have inspired him over the years: C. S. Lewis, H. P. Lovecraft, Alan Garner, Robert Holdstock, and many others. Loewen also makes no bones about his writing: he writes solely to entertain, his first desire to be a storyteller. If the reader discovers some great universal truth in a Loewen-crafted tale, that's icing on the cake, but as Loewen has said, "I want my readers simply to enjoy themselves in a story of my own creation. If they feel their time has not been wasted and they liked the story, I have achieved my primary goal." Loewen's stories come from a plethora of experience he has gathered over the years in working as a factory worker, inner-city security guard, park ranger, youth worker, radio personality, stage actor, stage and parlor magician, an ordained member of the clergy, computer salesman, counselor for mood disorders, life coach, and a host of other vocations. A lover of cinema, cats, neolithic survivals, oriental cuisine, gardening, used book stores, old houses, and sacred architecture, Loewen presently lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Married and with three sons, he shares his home with a Sheltie, three cats, a sun conure lovingly dubbed "The Death Chicken," and way too many rabbits.