Lana McAra The Writers Chair - Benjamin A Coward

What happens when you mix real-world environmental science, historic landmarks, and chilling native folklore? You get the spine-tingling world of author Benjamin A Coward!

In this episode of In the Writer's Chair, host Lana McAra sits down with Ben to discuss his journey from environmental scientist to fiction author. They dive deep into his latest supernatural horror thriller, Wendigo Knights, exploring the real-life history and North American cryptid lore that inspired it. From the eerie cave systems of Hannibal, Missouri to the challenges of writing authentic modern teenagers, Ben shares how he weaves snippets of nonfiction into captivating fiction.

Plus, Lana and Ben exchange creative strategies for selling books in unexpected places (like gun shows and nature festivals!) and how to craft the perfect 30-second elevator pitch to hook readers instantly.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• The Lore Behind the Monster: How Algonquin and Ojibwe tribal beliefs inspired the supernatural elements of Wendigo Knights.
• Setting the Scene: Why a real-life cave system in Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri provided the perfect, creepy backdrop.
• Writing 3D Worlds: How Ben uses his environmental science background to organically seed environmental and cultural themes into his books without overtaking the plot.
• Thinking Outside the Box: Creative marketing tips for authors, including how to connect with readers at craft shows, nature events, and local festivals.
• Bouncing Between Genres: How Ben manages writing two completely different series—the fantasy world of The Dragon's Tooth and his monster-hunting supernatural thriller series—to keep his passion for writing alive.

About the Guest:

Benjamin A Coward lives in Florida with his family, where he works in environmental science. He is the author of the young adult fantasy novel The Dragon's Tooth and the supernatural thriller Wendigo Knights. You can connect with Ben on Facebook or Instagram, and find his books available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Connect with the Show:

• Host: Lana McAra
• Podcast: In the Writer’s Chair
• Sponsor: Vella Publishing

Pull up a chair, and let's talk about the writing life!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In the Writer's Chair. Candid conversations about the writing life with Lana McCara and Vandela Publishing.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to In the Writer's Chair, where we pull up a chair and talk about writing craft, the writing life, and the possibilities for writers right now. I'm your host, Lana McCara, and today I am delighted to welcome to the podcast Benjamin Coward. Benjamin works in environmental science here in Florida, where he lives with his beautiful family, and he's the author of two books, The Dragon's Tooth and When To Go Knights. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Welcome, Ben. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be back.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yeah, we had you a while ago with your first book, and now here you are with the second book. So congratulations. I know many authors only get one book out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah. So this is When to Go Nights. I always get around to Halloween, and it's always I really wish I could tell a scary story. And so I finally got myself down and wrote out the book, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Awesome. Awesome. What is it fantasy?

SPEAKER_03 1:28

It is fiction, horror, thriller type of supernatural. So our world with going into a little bit of the supernatural of Wendigo's, which is Native American Algonquin, actually. So a Jibbaway and quite a few other Native American tribes believe in them, and it has a very big interest in pop culture today. And I enjoy Cryptids and Super the Supernatural, so it was an easy fit to s for something to write about.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

So those tribes you mentioned, are they Florida tribes?

SPEAKER_03 2:15

No, no. So Canada. Canada, Northern United States. The Algonquin tribes is basically used to be going from Canada down into northeastern United States. So New York, Delaware.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

It describes a language group of Native American tribes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

So you got uh your ideas from some of the lore and the stories from those tribes, is that it?

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Yes, they have a very big so the with the windigo, they have a very big belief in the windigo, which is basically the spirit that gets somebody to commit the act of cannibalism, such as w what they believed happened to the Donner Party, and stories like that. It is a big belief, in so much as into the turn of the nineteenth century, there was a court case where shaman were tried for trying to stop a person from becoming a windigo. So it's a very real belief in tribes in the northern United States and into Canada that the Wendigo is very important and a very big belief to be fearful of.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, there's so many places you could go with that kind of foundation. Yeah, for sure. Did you always want to be a writer from the time you were a child? No.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

Being a writer is something I more learned within the past oh ten years. I always like to tell stories and come up with stories in my imagination, but I never thought of myself as a writer. Now that I am doing it, I feel like I let myself down in some way.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I could have geared myself in college and things like that, but I'm very happy with where I am and telling the stories that are important to me. I always wanted to work with animals though.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

So being able to write a story with the background that I have is makes it makes it interesting.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Do you have like an underlying theme or purpose for your novels?

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Yes. So I am my degree, as you said, is in environmental science. So in a lot of my stories, I try and hit on in environmental issues, such as in my first book, I talked a lot about habitat fragmentation. And maybe the story doesn't have to focus on that, but you can use it as a very good plot device and make the reader think and not take the uh reader out of the world, but broaden the world. And being able to make people think while you're reading is for me at least, I very much enjoy it, where it makes the world real. So writing about environmental issues and cultural issues as well. Um I grew up with ADHD and was always felt like an outsider. So I wanted to make pe m write something from an outsider's perspective and make people feel like it's okay to be different.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah, I think using your characters, your character's challenges when they match our challenges, then we can write from personal experience and deliver the lessons or watch the character go through the learning of all of that. And it's such a wonderful and powerful way to help other people, don't you think?

SPEAKER_03 7:41

I do think that. I I really do enjoy being able to flesh out characters and uh like I said, make it feel like the story's real. Like right now I'm reading uh Percy Jackson books. I really like yuck young adult theme, it's not as doom and gloom as some of the other some of the adult books. And it gives me ideas on my own writing from a young adult perspective. But Rick Riordan does such a great job with his characters and gives me good ideas for my own that oh I don't really have in my own characters that I need to flush them out with.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I love what you said about the for example, the environmental aspect doesn't have to take over the story. You still have a story, but you have that as an add-in that makes the world like a rounded out three D world, and the same with the characters, they have these different issues or challenges that make them a 3D person, but we can do that and still tell a great story.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Well, yeah, I completely agree. Actually, Wendigo Knights, I came up with the setting. It's an actual place in Hannibal, Missouri, where Mark Twain grew up. I'm originally from Missouri and loved Mark Twain and loved the caves, but there's a cave system there called Sol Sodarless Caves. And they put these bars up on all of the cave entrances because there is some 50,000 endangered Indiana bats that live in these caves. And of course, when I heard about the bars being on the cave, I was like, oh, they're trying to keep something in. And I was like, that would be perfect for the monsters inside the cave, and it got out and is attacking people, and it was like, okay, this stuff writes itself.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

But at the same time, it's a real life thing. And I was like, man, this place sounds awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

The trick is paying attention and catching the nuggets that come up.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Yes, I completely agree. It I try and not put too dr go too far away from the story when I put my little things in there. But one thing that's been very was very difficult for me was writing a book while having technology. Oh, he checked his iPhone for map directions, and I'm like, I don't I didn't really think about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Well because as a kid, for me, we didn't have that.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

And so trying to write a book for today's kids wa is very different from writing for kids in the nineties. So I tried to put some detail in there that another teen would appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Is the book set in the modern day, or is it set? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Yes, it is set in the modern day. I don't say exactly which year, but the kids do look something up on their phones, and it gives them a map that I found actually online within five minutes of the Sodarlis and Hannibal of how to get into the park and all of this information where Main Street was, where all the little shops were, and being able to tell a story about a real place. Oh well. Being able to be like if you lived in Hannibal or went to Hannibal once, and I was like, oh, you know the ice cream parlor on Main Street, I can't remember the name, I think it's Betty's, is on the corner on Main Street, and I was just like, Oh, it's there, and the teens are hanging out there on Friday night.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And somebody reading that would be like, oh, is that place really there? And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

It is fiction because of the supernatural qualities and that type of stuff. But I like the little nuggets of nonfiction that I can put in there.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

So the product placement opportunities. If you go back to Hannibal sometime, you could walk in there and say, hey, you're in the book. Would you like to put it on a shelf around here somewhere and sell books?

SPEAKER_03 13:32

Yeah, that's out there, trust me. I plan on hitting that hard around Halloween time because it I did my best to tell the story of Hannibal and give a person that may not be there a good idea of what it is like to be a teen there.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

And growing up with things that are taken for granted.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

The Mark Twain exhibits that are there, everything from they have a little steamboat along the river's edge, because Mark Twain was really into steamboats. And they have a steamboat museum. And being able to just be like, oh, it's right there on this corner of this street. And uh having the characters be like, oh, the tourists are here. Gosh, they don't care about Mark Twain unless they're in Hannibal type of thing. But I of course loved Mark Twain growing up, and those stories were part of my childhood, so being able to for half a second be like don't look past the issues of the band books and look at it for a story in the historical quality that it provides.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

And trying to look at that through the perspective of a teenager that grew up with it.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

And it fleshes out one of the characters into a person that is jaded by the by it being around it all the time. And okay, I absolutely hate tourists now.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah, people that live in the local area oftentimes overlook their local historical things that they take it for granted. But I think if you are in an area should know, look around, see what's historical around you, what could you glean from that area? I've been in so many book festivals where someone near me, an author near me, had written a book about that locality. It was set in that locality. At the Sunshine State Book Festival, where we were together recently, the gal next to me had written books about Gainesville. And the Sunshine State Book Festival is in Gainesville. And she would say, Oh, all my books are set in Gainesville. And immediately the people there were like, Where? You know what? Maybe it's someplace near where I grew up. And the interest is so amazing for locations, and so you have a real open door there when they have their festivals, state fairs, whatever they do, they're in Hannibal, Missouri, or maybe they have a Mark Twain festival or something.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

They have so many amazing things there. They have I always loved going to they have the caves, the old Mark Twain caves, and they have spots along it when you're in the cave where it's like you're going through the book. Wow. And I I grew up with that. That's a real memory for me. So being back in the caves in Missouri, it's very nice, and it does have a creep factor to it, and but at the same time, it's what I loved about it. I loved that it was a little dark and creepy and put you on your toes a little bit. But you got done and you were always like, man, that was great.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, excellent. So your first book. What genre is that?

SPEAKER_03 17:50

It was fantasy.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Okay, that's what where I got fantasy in my head, because I interviewed you a while ago, and now the second book is more supernatural.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Yes, it's not the second book in a series. Okay. I have two different series going on. I have the Dragon's Tooth series, which is fantasy, and now the Wendigo series, when not Wendigo series, but the series of Thriller Supernatural is going to be its own series of hunting monsters encrypteds and because that it is such a big part of my life. I love using my imagination. And it's a very real split between fantasy and the supernatural. So being able to have two different stories going on at the same time where I can bounce back and forth between them and still enjoy writing, not make it get old. Because for me it's a great hobby to have, and I never want to feel like it's something that I don't like doing. I really love being able to talk to the readers and people buying the books about connecting with them. Because in a way, the book is my own way of having a conversation with the reader and being able to say my thoughts and my imagination. I need but you were at the Sunshine State Book Fair too. Do you have any more there's plenty of other fairs going on. Are you looking forward to any?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

There's so there's the wildflower festival that's gonna be in Live Oak in May, I think. The one in Amelia Island is already over. It was in January. So I don't really have a lot more that I know of in this local area, do you? I thought the Amelia Island one was in February. Maybe it it was in February. It was at like the last day of January, first day of February, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Um because my mine is on in Amelia Island is February 28th.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I will look into that for sure. I thought it was over. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

They're still doing stuff, but the actual fair is on the 28th, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Have you thought of going to other events rather than just book fairs? Do you go to any other kinds of events?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Actually, yes. I found of all places Palakka. Yeah. Palakka at Ravine Gardens does a lot of great events. And being able to be out in nature and talk to readers at the same time is like the perfect spot for me. It is really great to connect with people. And Palaka is a surprise for me when I first went there because it was like, okay, I'm probably gonna sell one or two books here. And I ended up selling out. Yeah, I was like, oh my gosh, that it the people were so nice, and it was such a rewarding experience that I've been going back several times.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Great. I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah, it's really important for writers to talk to each other about what about what. What's going on? I started going to the gun shows, and I know that's odd because I'm not a gun person at all. I know I don't own a gun, I don't think I've ever shot a gun. But one of my books is a thriller where it's one of those Chase CIA, everybody's after you with a gun kind of a book. And I contacted the gun show coordinator based off the sign. There was a big sign that said gun show coming and a website. And they let me come and put up a table. I was the only one with books in the room. And I did sell some books, and I got some good contacts as well. Yeah, think outside the box, you know, about what else could be adjacent to the story.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah I would not have thought about that. And my the Wendigo Nights does have guns in it, so yeah. I I always think about like craft shows.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Because it is a form of art that we're doing, writing in books. So being able to be have all the art around you and then have be one of the few booksellers there. Like I said, putting yourself out there at any type of craft show or being able to have the experience of talking to people gives you great experience for when you actually are at a book show and you don't know how to start a conversation. Like on any interview practice. Because there could be plenty of people that walked up to my table and I did not know how to get my book crossed. When I first started, I didn't know how to tell about my book in one minute to thirty seconds before their interest goes, oh, there's something over there.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah, yeah. So how do you do it? Just pretend I'm somebody walking up to your table. What would you say to me?

SPEAKER_03 24:22

So to st it like for the dragon's tooth, when I first had that, I would just be like, Hey, do you like dragons? Well, good, you do. So imagine a world where you have dragon riders, and I'm going to tell you the story of how the d dragons and riders came to be connected. And I'm building this world with magic and elves and everything that you love about fantasy, and trying to make it into a real place for you. Then it goes, okay, how are you doing that?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

And I'm like, oh, you and it goes from there. Yeah, that's terrific. That is wonderful. Because you're creating the world, you're experiencing a little taste of it. And then they, if they're if that's their thing, they're gonna go, oh, that sounds cool. Oh, yeah.

unknown 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

One of the best openers I've ever heard, then, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

I had a bad experience at the latest fair where I was being really nice, and the m mom came over first, and I'm like, and her daughter's in the next one over, and I'm like, oh trying to w get information to see what age for young adult the reader is, because I'm not a tall person, and anytime I see a person my size, I'm like, oh, they're probably within the age range. And I'm like, Well, how old is your little girl?

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And she goes, She's 17.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

And and then the daughter who heard me, then I had to have the conversation with her about trying to sell my book. She was very nice. Both parent and child were very nice, but it set me up for failure because I was like, I don't know what to say now.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

I have officially burned a bridge. Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

But ha having the books read is such an amazing experience, and being able to talk to parents and grandparents that they're like, oh, this would make a great gift for this, and being able to see into their lives for a minute of getting a book and appreciating it is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Oh, I know. When someone comes up and talks to you about your book and tells you how it affected them and they're looking for more, there's just nothing like it.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Oh, yes. I being a new author, I haven't had a ton of those experiences yet. But I've had a couple, and it is always so rewarding to be like they come up to you and they're like, okay, so what's next?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yes, exactly. That's building a following. That's what it's called. Wow, what a great conversation, Ben. I'm so glad we got a chance to talk today. Give us your website.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

I don't have a website right now. I'm working on it. But you can find me on Instagram or Facebook. And of course, you can find my books on Amazon or Barnes Noble.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Okay. Excellent. And give us the two titles, just so we have it here at the end.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

The two titles are The Dragon's Tooth and When to Go Knights.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

When to go nights, it's W-E-N-D-I-G-O.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Yes. Yes. When to go nights.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Oh, and look at the monster. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Thanks for the one.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yes, yes, absolutely. Then thank you so much for our conversation today.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Okay, thank you. It was always nice to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

And thanks for pulling up a chair with us today. See you next time.