New Year, New Me

I've been having a lot of fun playing the part of my superhero character, Damson Dragon on Twitter, but I realize that hiding behind my character isn't really the best way to go about things.

I'm trying to enhance my on line presence a bit in the new year. I'll be putting up a new web page and such soon.

In the meantime, one of the things I haven't been able to share has been the stories behind the stories. I'll put those here, in Paige's Pages from now on.

You may not know this, but The Damson Dragon Diary is a fun mix of reality and fantasy. Many of the events in the diary are inspired by real events in my life in Austin. There really was a grass fire, an 18 wheeler wreck, a bank that keeps their doors locked during the day because they were robbed, a 16 mile wide wildfire in Bastrop, a cat like Cam, a dog like Peanut, and more.

Many of the people in the diary are also real people that I know, included with their permission, or characters that others have created. There really is a Lord Vile, and a Madspark, actual fun friends of mine who live in Austin.

My friend Jarrett Crippen has inspired no less than three characters, Det Long, Officer Flynn, and TakeDown, who is his own superhero invention. You may know him as The Defuser from Stan Lee's Who Wants to Be a Superhero.

Lord Vile, or Alex Gray in his non super-villain personna, wrote a story for the Protectors anthology, and has a world wide following. Madspark, my favorite real life mad scientist, although he prefers the PC term, rogue technologist, might show up in the next Protectors anthology.

Austin is the only place I know where that many fascinating personalities mix. How many towns can boast their own real life superhero, supervillain and mad scientist?

Add to that the talents of many of my fantasy and sci fi writer friends from the Slug tribe and the Austin Comic Creators group, and I had an amazing talent pool to pull from for the Protectors anthology. A few semi-famous visitors to Austin for the Armadillocon writer convention also pitched in. The anthology is nearing completion. I'll keep you guys posted on it's status as it goes along.

In the meantime, pay no attention to me. I'm just the woman behind the curtain.

Keep enjoying the Damson Dragon Diary, and I'll keep writing it.

Paige E. Ewing