Joel's Writing Studio
"What we need is imagination, but
imagination is a terrible straitjacket." - Richard Feynman
Joel Van Valin, novelist and publisher, at your service!
A little bit about me ... I'm from St. Paul, where I still live (after a short interlude in Santa Monica). I live just outside the entrance to the State Fair grounds with my beautiful wife Lisa, identical twin boys Sam and Alex (born June 2018) and a pair of cats (Percival and Mel).
(For a video featuring Percival, click here.)
I work by day as a technical writer.
I love wine and Greek gods, used to fly airplanes, and have an inexplicable fondness
for The Kinks, Byron & anything English.
If I lived during the Middle Ages I would probably be a wandering minstrel.
My first novel, The Flower of Clear Burning, was published in 2002, and my second novel,
The Grand Dissolute, was released in the fall of 2015.
I also have a chapbook of poetry published, The White Forest.
My main hobby is Whistling Shade, a literary newspaper that
contains stories, poetry, literary essays and many other brilliant things. We also publish books and are searching far and wide for the perfect romantic narrative poem for our Geste series.
I have also been posting articles related to time travel fiction over at Time Travel Nexus.
So anyway, welcome to the studio. I've put links to some stories and poetry below, and
lists of favorite movies and novels.
Feel free to kick back on the sofa and grab something to read.
Heck, have a beer if you want.
About The White Forest
      About The Grand Dissolute
      About The Flower of Clear Burning
      About Whistling Shade
      Published Work
About The White Forest
The White Forest is a volume of lyric verse (and yes I can say that with a straight face).
I've written poetry since my high school days and had poems appear in a few journals (see Published Work), but this is my first collection.
It is what is known as a chapbook, which means it is a slim hand-made volume of about 20 pages or so, and is only $9.
Sporting a couple of sonnets, a spell, a hymn, and various love poems, it is a bit revolutionary for the year 2018 ... but I've always been a renegade when it comes to verse!
The White Forest can be purchased from the publisher, Prolific Press.
| |
Studio Contents
Poetry
Stars in the Rain
Bluebells
Red Tree Song
Fiction
Torech the Shipwright
My Top 100
Films
Novels
|