I’m a writer and you have somehow arrived at my author website. I am unable to greet you in person, but my most dependable employee, Crikey, will make sure you have an interesting, if not meaningful experience.
Hello, my name’s Crikey. I’m a goon quoll from the author’s novel, Moonbow. A quoll is a variety of marsupial found in Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesia. Quolls are carnivorous, about the size of a house cat, and essentially vicious. We make Tasmanian devils look like pygmy manatees.
Goon quolls (Dasyurus truculentus) are the best kind of quoll, larger than lunky westerns, smarter than uppity tigers, and extinct like the cleaver-headed crocodile. That makes me sort of unique.
Enough about me, though. I’m supposed to give you some background on my boss, the author. I really can’t say anything too awful about him. He lets me get away with murder in Moonbow. You’re free to wonder if that’s just a figure of speech.
Sorry about the nuisance ads and whatnot. WordPress dislikes me and goes out of its way to be rude and troublesome. You probably believe WordPress is a web content management system, but I recently learned WordPress is actually an extradimensional entity called a cybergeist.
Embedding obnoxious clutter on this website is one technique that cybergeist uses to make me look bad. Please don’t leave any hurtful comments. 🫤
About the author…
Chris Lux Hayes works as the senior writer and photographer in the marketing department for two colleges, one technical, one community. He writes two campus news blogs, DCTC News and Inver Hills News, and photographs college and community events for DCTC and Inver Hills Flickr albums.
Chris resides in primordial Minnesota in a six-acre arboretum with his wife, Ginny, and two Pumik (singular Pumi) named Csilla and Skookum, and one 95-pound giant schnauzer named Gungnir, aka Gunny, Gunboat, and/or Big Money.¹
Equipped with a black belt in taekwondo, a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota, and a decades-long interest in jnana yoga, Chris enjoys photographing insects and other bugs, resulting in Escape to the Bughouse on Flickr. You can read his author blog with the same name on this website. He also likes to create AI art, resulting in a NightCafe creation page.
Chris Lux Hayes • Q & A
What do you like best about writing?
At the micro-level, I enjoy tinkering with sentences until they click into place. At the macro-level, I love the power of storytelling because that power is all your own—at least until your characters show you otherwise. Revising a purportedly finished manuscript is my favorite part of the writing process.
Who is your favorite character out of the works you’ve written?
Crazy, the renegade fox in Buddha Rex. He’s maybe my most farfetched protagonist due to his unwanted anthropomorphic circumstances, but he’s also most like me in terms of worldly outlook.
Mars Lahar, the lead in The Endarkened Series, can often show up as my favorite, too. I would like to be Mars in most any afterlife fantasy spree. (I haven’t formally checked with Ginny, my wife, but I’m betting she would be good to go as Lozen Reaver, Lahar’s eternal inamorata.)
What are you looking forward to writing next?
Gungnir, the second novel in The Endarkened Series. That’s going to be a “comet ride with three storylines converging in a Tunguska-class explosion of fuss and fun.” I’m quoting Crikey, my publicist, so that’s probably not entirely helpful.
Chris Lux Hayes • 17 Answers
- Favorite sport or physical activity: Watching horror or sci-fi movies while chalking up miles on my elliptical machine
Place you would most like to visit: Taman Negara in Malaysia for bugging or Seychelles for chilling- Most exciting thing you’ve ever done: Stayed a month at the 2001 Maha Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, India
- Three things you would do if you won a $1 billion lottery: 1) Buy land with old-growth forests, wildflower meadows, perennial streams, deep-water lakes, towering bluffs, and fantastic waterfalls 2) Build a colossal, dog-centric, futurized Queen Anne mansion with immense windows, mysterious rooms, vast conservatories, and a tower study for writing 3) Secretly distribute life-altering funds to various parties and charitable organizations
Favorite song in a crunch: “Experience” by Ludovico Einaudi…Crazy’s theme song; “Genau Wie Damals” by Ulrich Schnauss…Mars Lahar’s theme song; right now: “She” by Alice Phoebe Lou- Favorite music artists at the moment: Lights & Motion, Max Richter, Rhian Sheehan, Ólafur Arnalds, Hans Zimmer
- One thing you want to accomplish in life: Publish Buddha Rex and go see where Crazy went…
- Your national bird if you were your own country: Black swan or brown creeper
- Your national mammal if you were your own country: Killer whale
- Time period you would explore if you could time travel: When time finally flies and I am that I am
Dream occupation: Novelist- Person you would most like to meet: Sri Anandamayi Ma
- Skill you would most like to learn and master: Playing any musical instrument like a gandharva (in a multiverse where female gandharvas are not limited to the role of divine dancers, but also excel as musicians and singers just like the male gandharvas 🦄)
- Favorite perennial: Hosta
- Favorite quote: “You will never be who you think you are.” — Anonymous
- Most important issue or problem facing humankind: Collective insanity
- Name of your new superyacht: Purushottama
¹ The year 2023 took three members of our family, first Tocho in January, and then Winter and Ukko in November, all Pumik and all deeply loved. Ginny's elemental soulmate, Ukko died suddenly two days before Thanksgiving. We named him after the Finnish god of the sky, but Ukko's heart dwarfed the wild blue yonder. We will meet again.
Contact the author…
