Joseph Rollins is a short story author, novelist, and poet.
Who I Am
I am Joseph Rollins, a lover of all fiction and an avid reader and writer. Along with holding a bachelor’s degree from California State Fullerton, I am an active participant in the Yavapai College creative writing program and a member of the Professional Writers of Prescott. I spend my days scribbling a wide range of stories and poems. In addition to Iron Spires, I have three other novels at some point of completion. I am a regular at Prescott, Arizona coffee shops with fountain pen ink of every color staining my fingers and cuffs.
I live and work on a small vineyard in Northern Arizona with my dog, two cats, six chickens, four ducks, wife, and son, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Please feel free to contact me using the information on the bottom of this page.
Creating Iron Spires
W riting Iron Spires over the White City was a labor of love, as I worked through a half-dozen drafts spread across five years. It was originally conceived as a NaNoWriMo novel; a creative project I could work on with friends working on their own stories. Before I knew what had happened, Iron Spires had grown into a saga about war and espionage, violence, love and family.
I love steampunk, cyberpunk, and, perhaps most of all, the all-too-discredited dieselpunk. I love just about any story that flips history on its head with a cast of reckless characters and never-before-conceived technologies that break down societal ills and teach hard lessons from inside imaginative fiction stories.
From the Back Cover
T he American Revolution never happened. Armies wage war with steam-powered tanks, zeppelins, and a host of mechanized beasts. The British Empire dominates the globe, planting colonies and controlling nations and resources. Now, in the time of Queen Victoria, England struggles with a growing global Resistance movement.
British colonial family is caught in the crosshairs when one of their own, Anne Goulden, is kidnapped by South American Resistance forces. Her brother Edward, his wife, and her cousin travel to Cartagena to search for Anne and find out why the local magistrate closed the investigation and declared Anne dead.
Edward and his family follow their sister’s trail deep into the South American rainforest. There, an epic showdown awaits with a fleet of British battleships, a Resistance army, and a cast of imaginative characters.
These stories revolve Dr. Maxwell Zoelegger, a strange young man dedicated science changing the world for the better. Naturally this leads to life outside the law.
Currently, I am drafting and redrafting a magical realism novel about two Latino teens journeying from Anaheim to Mexico City. I posted chapter 1 and a magical chapter about spiders from somewhere in the middle.