E651 - Mark J Wilson - Full of Beans - A dead professor. A missing student, And a time-traveling detective.

EPISODE 651 - Mark J Wilson - Full of Beans - A dead professor. A missing student, And a time-traveling detective.

Mark is a scientist who works in gene therapy and very foolishly decided he had to write a novel about a time-traveling detective in his spare time.

I live in Washington, DC with my wife, Carrie, but I was born and brought up in Reading, England. My favourite place in the world is in the Cotswolds, just down the road from Oxford (where most of Full of Beans is set).

I went to college in Canterbury where I studied biochemistry and got a PhD. I have worked in biopharmaceuticals for the last 35 years or so.

I’m currently working in gene therapy, helping to develop a much-needed cure for Rett Syndrome.

I worked in Nottingham and Cambridge before moving back to Reading (so it can’t be all bad, right?). Then I came to America in 2009. It does seem like a drastic move just to get out of Reading again. I lived in North Carolina for 7 years before moving to the DC area.

Growing up in Reading gave me a fascination with trains and planes, being as how there wasn’t much else there to interest a kid. I loved hanging around at the west end of Platform 5, and when Concorde would fly over. And there was a Model Shop. I loved the Model Shop. And Eames’ model train shop.

My dad gave me lifelong passions for astronomy, physics, chess, cooking, and model-making. And I love model trains. Over the years, in my spare time, I’ve also been a watercolor artist and a music producer. I love electronic dance music.

Full of Beans is my first published novel and it is dedicated to Carrie and her coffee machine, which would constantly instruct us to “Fill Beans,” whether the hopper was full or empty. Without either of them this book might never have been written. It took over two years to write, on the weekends and holidays, and I learned a lot about writing.

I heard they are bringing back Clippy... ‘I see you’re writing a novel. Do you need help with that?’ I did need help, but instead I have relied on some actually talented hooman-beans for that.

The book was an editor’s nightmare to work on. We chose British English spellings (like ‘colour’) and phrases (such as ‘bugger off’) to go with most of the settings and characters. However, we also chose to go with the Chicago Manual of Style for other stuff like punctuation, rather than the Oxford Guide to Style. Sorry Oxford. Please check the CMOS before levelling criticism at the editing; it was a heroic effort. Thanks Kevin and Avery.

Feel free, however, to debate the choice to liberally use the Oxford comma. And to jolly-well split some infinitives. And start sentences with conjunctions.

If strict British grammar is your passion, rather than a fun read, then hard cheese. It isn’t meant to be bloody Shakespeare. I’m sure there’ll be a new Booker Prize nominee along any minute now.

The artwork was accomplished with help from artlist.io, using its Comic Noir algorithm and many, many attempts, amalgamations, and many hours of editing images to get what I wanted. The book cover was a team effort with Joe and Michelle.

https://markjwilson.com/