"I am a hard working author of seven books. I have lived on the family farm, in jails, prisons and institutions, in the mountains, on the roads and in the streets. I am a survivor. I love to write because I write about what I know and I know what I write. My life has been exhilarating and the exuberance I've learned from such a hard life has stood me good. I am old enough to have been able to have sat down and write what I've taken a lifetime to learn and accomplish. Everybody is different but we all have something in common. In my case that has sometimes been just keeping alive, one step ahead of danger or death. So I like to share what was in my life, with a little imagination and write something that other's can use in their own lives. Even if it's just a thrill my readers want, what's wrong with that?" -Timothy Louis Baker
What made you want Where North Meets South and East Meets West?
The life I've led portrays one of a person on the run, constantly my life was sought, but then the miracles of God that occurred to me were there to save me and finally I experienced a flesh on flesh, in the body, living, waking, physical experience with Heaven. All these reasons made purpose for wanting to write the book. Now I've got to sell it, so that multitudes of people may see exactly what was meant when I wrote Where North Meets South and East Meets West. Which means where we are in life, right here and now.
What are the other books you've written, and how do they differ from your most recent?
I also have the condensed version of the same work which is less graphic, An Experience Heaven Sent. Then there is additionally the poetic version of my autobiography My Life's History in Poetry. I have Wilderness Generations and American Lives Past that are both short story collections of things ranging again from my own life's experiences, living in the mountains. They contain separate characters, each story with different locations from the late 1700's or 1800's moving chronologically through time until the 1900's. My Fantastic Florida Fun is about crime and drugs in the 70's with the main characters becoming involved in a criminal organization that involves to a certain degree hypnotism and the possible incestuous relationship of a daughter who is influenced by some method. So she is unaware of it and it takes the boyfriend to bring her out of it and so is then in choice of how to take revenge over the Father whose corruption of his daughter is disgusting to him. Lastly Crime and Drugs on Trip City Street presents the situation of a fictitious Trip City Street in a futuristic world, revolving around the most powerful man in the world. Who is a criminal and has the evil side that would be envious to Adolph Hitler and this new criminal genius has intentions of building a terrorist army under the guise to the American public and government, of merely being an extra militia in case the US ever got into a war that they couldn't handle with their own US Army. However can this new superpower trust even his own men?
Is there a message you want readers to take from reading your work?
Yes I do have the message that within the world there are from all walks of life people that have a good turn about them, that can be trusted to overcome any situation. Why do you think so many books end up with the good guy coming to the rescue? Because that's the way it can happen in life and not just reading from a page. Take me for instance. I had been involved in criminal activity since my teens but I had a reason to run from crooked law officials and not to ever turn straight. Until the very last when I had the experience in Heaven. Added on top of the already many instances of other miracles that happened prior to that, I calmed way down and after returning home to Ohio later that year, other than drug use I was never again involved in or took part in any more criminal activity and I mean to keep it that way. My writing just conveys the message that anything can and will turn out for the better in the end. If you just keep trying at it, chipping away and whittling away at something, eventually you can get done at it in most cases and that's the importance of all I write to those that can and may receive that message.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
The best advice I've ever received or given is, "Write what you know and know what you write." If you talk to somebody about something you don't really know what it is all about but you lead them on like you really are almost an expert on the subject, then when they discover that you really don't know what you're talking about when you speak to them, then they are going to quit listening to you and that way you've lost a listener. The same with writing. If you stick to what you do know and your facts are straight then the opposite will occur. You will have gained readers and they may return in the future for more consultation on that or some either related or non related topic. I read Michener's Centennial various times over 20 years over before picking up the pen to become an author, just learning what he had to say about the wilderness and mountainous living in the old days. So when I went out to live on my own I knew more about what I was doing. Read as much as you want to but people expect an author to be an expert on what they write.
Do you have a publisher or agent? How did you get one?
I've never had an agent but instead I've always dealt straight with publishers but these were self-publishers. So that after the book actually came out in print the similarities of publishing and self-publishing evaporated. I had to put up the expense of time and money to publicize, advertising and promoting the books myself. Some authors prefer it that way.
If you could live anywhere, where would that be?
Right here in Ohio near my son who lives in the same state. After all of my adventurous travels where I've seen the most beautiful sights of a lifetime, this is where I'd like to stay on a more permanent basis. Because of the weather and the fact I live near my son but also because I don't have money to move somewhere else and I don't want to be one that always wants what they can't have, so I focus on the good points of a situation and not the downside of things. I guess I'm a dreamer. Read it in books, see it on television, but to go out and travel to some remote wilderness in person I something I'm just not able to do anymore. I'm just getting too old for all that anymore. Hitchhiking is illegal the way I frequently used to get around and I couldn't walk 10 miles plus everyday up and down the mountains. I'm contented with the fact that I did it while I was young and realize it is time be settled down and quit roving.
If you could have a super power, what would that be? Fact of the matter is that God had all the superpower that was ever necessary in my life. I wouldn't want to be able to do what God has done with me on my own by myself because it is not in human power to perform them by any personal individual. If it was, my autobiographical works would have no point because people would have been out doing them for many centuries now and that's not the case.
"Thank you for chatting with us today, Timothy. We have enjoyed your responses." The Book Nymph
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