The Dystopian Thriller That's More Terrifying Than Zombies|The Mark|TA Thompson

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I can't remember the name of the disease, but I remember what caused the disease. And they're telomeres and they're attached to the DNA. And every time your DNA replicates, it gets a little shorter. And when it's no longer there, the the DNA doesn't replicate anymore. It's why we age. So I was just riding around on my mower and I thought, well, what if instead of it getting to it to the end, and then you just it just you know nothing happens? What if it just gets to a certain point and then you die? And my mind just went off on this wild story.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Every journey has a story, and every story has the power to heal. My story hasn't been ordinary. I was adopted, I'm a survivor of abuse and trauma, and I have more than a dozen siblings. That's just the beginning of my story. Life has taken me on a long and winding road of healing and personal growth. A journey that ultimately led me back to myself and the path I was meant to walk. Along the way, I discovered that stories have power. The power to connect us, to help us grow, and even to help us heal. This is Travel Time Stories with Jamin. Real journeys, real stories, and real healing. Welcome back to Travel Time Stories, where we share real journeys, real stories, and real healing. Today's journey isn't through a country, it's through our imagination. Because sometimes fiction asks questions that reality is too afraid to ask. Today's guest is T.A. Thompson, author of the dystopian thriller The Mark, a story that explores survival, morality, motherhood, power, and what happens when humanity loses its feature. Welcome to the show, Tia. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I'm very excited to be here, Santa.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Well, I am definitely excited to have you, like I said, before we started. I love dystopian stories, and I like the fact that this one is a little bit different than the usual that you get with the dystopian stories, which usually involves zombies or the apocalypse or whatever. But the first question I have for you is who wakes up one morning and thinks, what if no one grew old anymore? I mean, where did that come from?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

You know, I didn't wake up and have that idea. I was mowing my lawn and had that idea. Oh, what? Yeah, I mean, I just my mind wanders, especially when I'm doing something monotonous like that. And I started thinking about this report I had to write in a biology class, and it had to do, like we had to pick like a cool disease that nobody'd have heard of. And of course, I can't remember the name of the disease, but I remember what caused the disease, and they're telomeres and they're attached to the DNA. And every time your DNA replicates, it gets a little shorter, and when it's no longer there, the the DNA doesn't replicate anymore. It's why we age. So I was just riding around on my mower, and I thought, well, what if instead of it getting to it to the end, and then you just it just yeah, nothing happens. What if it just gets to a certain point and then you die? And my my mind just went off on this wild story uh in my own head, and then I came up with the ending, and then I had to figure out a beginning, and all of this was happening in the span of like three hours. And then when I got done, I ran back in the house and grabbed my laptop and just started writing. And uh, I had to slow myself down a little bit because there was a lot of a fair amount of science involved in this that I had to, you know, wrap my head around, even if I'm stretching it a little bit, and then I had to come up with a lot of environmental things. So as much as I love to just like jump into something and run, I had to really force myself to push pause and make sure I did it correctly.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, because I mean, even if you're stretching things, you want to get as close to accuracy as possible so it is believable and people aren't going, really, there's no way that could happen, you know?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah, my my daughter's a little brainiac and she would point out things, you need to fix this because it just doesn't make enough sense. Thanks, kid.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Hey, my mom used to always say, out of the mouths of babes comes the truth. So if you want to know the truth, ask a kid, they'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah, she has no problem with telling me telling me the truth, especially if I don't want to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Right, exactly. I think your day job is commercial insurance, correct?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

That is correct. That's that's what I've been doing for the last 13 years.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

So that seems like two completely separate worlds: dystopian fiction and then commercial insurance, but I'm sure there's influence from one on the other. So how does one influence the other for you?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So the commercial insurance, having lived in that world, I've I've really started to think in terms of worst-case scenario, because that's really what insurance is. You need to plan for the worst case scenario. So everywhere I go drives my wife nuts. I'm like, I'm not going in that building, or this is a death trap, or this crazy thing could happen here. And I've started like everything that I look at comes through that filter. So when I started writing in a world where the worst's happened, and it's post-apocalyptic, and it's 500 years in the future where nobody's been able to progress anything, it really helped me dial in on what those bad things were that happened and what effect that would have had as time went on until we get to the point where the story starts.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah. So why do you think readers are so drawn to the dystopian stories?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Usually, I mean, there's there could be several different reasons. One, it's fun to just live in that fantasy world. I I don't like reading books where it reminds me of my life. So jumping into a completely different world where you don't know what could happen because the the world building could be completely different. Like, like I like to call it, the physics of the world might be different than the world that we live in. So seeing that and seeing those rules be different is fun because you can't always anticipate them and they can be shocking when they happen. That's the kind of book that I like to read and write is something shocking where you have an outcome that you don't see coming. Also, usually the the heroes or the heroines that you have in those books are above and beyond the the typical person you would see in today's society. And I if I was to read about someone in today's society that behaved like Alexandra does in my book, I'd be like, that is just way too far-fetched. That wouldn't happen. The police would shut her down, right? Or the FBI, like somebody would take her out. Where in her world, it's just par for the course.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Right. So if civilization lost the ability to think long term, what do you think would disappear first? Compassion, hope, morality? What what do you think would go first?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

I think it would be morality if you wanted to pick from those. And it would really become more of a survival mentality. And when you have that survival mentality, morality tends to go out the window because I need to feed my family. So sorry, but your family's not getting fed, but mine comes first. And that is really the theme in a lot of different books within this genre, or even movies or shows within this genre, and I do think it makes the most sense.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, I think so too. I think morality would definitely be the first thing to go. And I think we've seen a little bit of that in the last several years with different things that have happened over the years.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

I I would agree. And and to kind of take a step back to your previous question, pulling morality out of a world also makes it a very interesting story because then you start running into people who are willing to do whatever to get their way or to gain power or keep their power. Uh, and and it it it makes I know it makes my imagination run, and it comes up with good ideas for scenarios to put my characters in, and reading those things is also a lot of fun, too.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Yeah, I agree. So you mentioned Alexandra, so let's talk about her. She's not your typical heroine, she's complicated, uh, protective, strategic, and sometimes ruthless. So tell us more about her.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

She's almost always ruthless. That's just that's if I had to like pick a middle name for her, it would be ruthless. And a lot of that stems from the world that she lives in. She was raised to be a protector of her uh of her community, and she took that to heart and she became the best that she could be. She's also like in a world where everybody dies at 22. She's 25, and she's considered a freak. People don't treat her well. She's expecting to die at any second. And you were talking about taking morality out of a situation. Well, when you take away all consequences, because I'm a gonna die, I'm gonna die in any second, right? So, what are consequences? What's morality? Like that type of thing doesn't matter. And she views everything through that lens of can I do this? What am I going to get out of it? How quickly am I going to get a result from this? And what's actually going to happen to me in the long run? That last one is usually, she thinks, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

And she has to figure out how to navigate that while pulling allies together and realizing that while she might not have long-term consequences, the people that she's working with do. And having to really sit down and consider those for the first time in a long time.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah. That would be hard to have to think about because you think, you know, you're worrying about you, and oh, I don't have anything to worry about. I can do whatever because I'm gonna die. And then now you have this collective group that you know you gotta think about. And do you allow them to put themselves out there where they face consequences, or do you figure out how to do it where you're the only one facing consequences, but they're still helping you?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah. And and when she has when I mean the whole point of the book is for her to find her son, and she really has that thought process of I'm going to find him and protect him, and I don't care what it costs. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how many people she has to kill or put in danger. And she starts to like part of her character development is I really do care about these people, and I shouldn't be doing this. And she has to find that fine line between you know how much of her soul and other people's souls is she willing to sacrifice to save her son, and it it was very interesting because she she doesn't straddle that fence, she jumps from one side to the other. And it and it was a lot of fun putting her in those different scenarios and seeing her do that. I mean, as a human being, it's really hard to straddle a fence. You're either on one side of it or the other, and I really wanted to instill in her as much humanity as possible, even if it looked like she didn't have any humanity because of the action she was taking.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, I think that's good. And was there ever a moment when you were riding her where she surprised you?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Oh, all the time. All the time. I uh I'm a big gamer, I love playing Dungeons and Dragons, and one of the things that I was my son, yeah. So one of the things because I run the game, so I always just I put the characters in event, you know, in scenarios and like figure it out, and then I just work around that. And I found myself doing that writing for her. I was like, well, this would be interesting, I'll put her in there, and then we'll just see what she says and see what she does, and then figure out how people would respond to that and just move it forward from there. Um, so yeah, I was I was surprised a lot of times with what she did. And when I started writing it, I I knew the world, I knew where I was starting, and I knew where I wanted to end it, and I didn't really know the middle, so I just had to progress it how I felt was logical to how what what she was doing and reactions to what she was doing, and then reactions to how she was being treated because of what she was doing, and figure it out from there. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah, I can imagine so. And do you think readers need a protagonist that is flawed versus one that's perfect?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I think that's going to depend on the reader. I I have a very hard time believing a perfect protagonist. It's just not believable. And honestly, they're kind of boring, right? They're always going to make the right choice, they're always going to do the right thing. Even if you put them in an almost impossible situation, you know what they're going to do. So having a protagonist that is really an anti-hero and someone that you're you're you're rooting for, but you don't know why, because they're such a bad person. I just think that's so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah, it is. Those are my favorite characters. Um I'm not I'm not so much the Disney character where, you know, it's all sunshine and roses no matter what they do.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Well, and the same with like Disney endings, right? They're all happy. I can't stand a happy ending. I I want a messy ending.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Exactly. Or a cliffhanger that leads me hanging so I'm ready for the next part of the story or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

It has to be a good cliffhanger, though. Sometimes they're just it's almost like they just were like, oh, I hit my number of pages, so I can stop now. Ugh. No, it needs to be, as crazy as it sounds, a tidy cliffhanger.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, that's true. I agree with that statement. So your book really asked what makes us human? And if you had to answer that in one sentence, what would you say?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Boy, my sentence would probably be listing out character traits. Because that that is that is a very hard question to ask or to answer. What makes us human based on the book? I would say tenacity for survival and protection of your family. I think those are big things that make us human. There are other, there, you know, there are other species in the world that will protect their young tenaciously, but there are other ones that will not. And we definitely take it to the next level by planning for their future. And in the book, she does that. She's always trying to prepare her son for what could happen, any eventuality, uh prepare for her death because she expects to die at any moment. She always wants him to have his eyes open and taking in all the information that he can. And I I definitely feel like that helps to make us human.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Do you think hope is something that we're born with or something that we choose?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

I think it's environmental. If you're around someone who is hopeless, you're not going to have any hope. That's just the way the world is. It's like, you know, it's it's like being born to someone who is a me a mean person and just has a terrible outlook on life. You end up picking that up in most instances. So unless you have an outside influence that shows you that there's another path and another way that you can be, that ends up being the path that you go down.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

So you describe yourself as an unconventional writer. What does your process actually look like?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Well, my process is pretty sloppy. Uh it's I I tend to come up with endings, I tend to get my ideas out of weird places, and then I try to to figure out a beginning and and a cool character and then how they're gonna fit into it. And I'm I'm not huge on outlines or character sheets or planning ahead, uh, which sometimes is great because it leads my stories down interesting paths, and other times I have to go back and you know do a control F and try to find where a certain character was mentioned so that I can see what was going on, and that can be a little more time consuming, but I feel like the overall creative benefit that I get from that is very positive. I don't know what a conventional writing style is. I'm not I'm not trained, I haven't gone to school for it. I love reading, I love stories, and I love writing. And I was able to put those together and figure out a way to make it work.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah. And I don't think there is specifically a certain way that it has to be done. I mean, as long as you can put it all together and you have the ability to edit it down to the way it needs to be, so it's a finished product, it doesn't matter how you get there.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

That was a big thing for me too, and a big belief of mine is just write it all down, right? It it's never going to be perfect the first time through. I had a really hard time with that at first. I still do sometimes, but I just write it down. I write it down, and then if I don't like it, I'll take it out. Or I'll tweak it or I'll move it somewhere else. But the key is get it out because the more of your ideas that you can get out, the more you can spin off from it or work with it. And if it just doesn't end up working, you can kill it there and and move on to something else.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Before we continue, I want to share something really special we've created for this community. If you've ever listened to an episode and about something deeper, like a moment that stayed with you or a story that made you reflect on your own life, we wanted to give you a place to go with that. We've officially launched our Travel Time Stories membership, where you can go beyond listening and become part of the experience. Inside the membership, you'll get access to the Story Circle, our private community where we reflect on each episode through guided journal prompts, share our stories, and connect through monthly meetups. There are also additional tiers with opportunities to go even deeper from storytelling and sharing your voice to being part of the creative journey behind the scenes and joining us on our yearly group travels. If this speaks to you, you can join us through the link in the show notes or visit our website, travel timestories.com. We would truly love to have you join the community. Yeah, exactly. Um I've finished one book and I've been working on another one, my memoir, for quite a long time now. And I finished it like I don't know how many times, and then every time I sit down to do the edit, it's like, nope, I don't like this at all. Scratch it all and start over again. I don't know why the memoir is the hardest one.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Because your experiences really skewed the lens for how you look at things, right? So if you sat down and you wrote it and it sits for a year, you've had another 365 days worth of experiences. And when you look back at it, it might have changed your view of how that happened or how that what the meaning that that brings to your life. So yeah, I get oh, that would be a nightmare having to write a memoir. I mean, I wrote this and I've probably gone through it ten times, and I finally read it in paper form so that I couldn't edit it, and it was driving me nuts because I would see little things that needed to be changed, or I'm like, oh, I could have ordered it this way, and that would have been better. So I completely understand that. At some point you just have to draw a line in the sand and tell it say you're done, or have somebody else do it because they're not going to want to change it, they're just gonna want to tweak it.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, that's what I think I'm gonna have to end up doing with the memoir. My fiction book, no problem. I I was able to finish that, I've done the editing on it, it's now ready to go into be published, but the memoir, I I'm definitely gonna have to have somebody else look at that because I just can't anymore. So, what do you think's been the biggest hiccup for you becoming an author?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

It's been all the stuff after writing the book. Uh, I was very hesitant to want to get it published. I'd written another book before this and had it edited and you know, going through the whole query letter process, that's just that's just a nightmare. It's rejection city. So when I got done with this one, I let it sit. I let it sit for like five years before I finally decided you know what, I think I'm going to put my big boy pants on and take the step and put it out there to the world. But instead of just like throwing it on Amazon and calling it good, I had it edited. I had uh, you know, I went through it again after it was edited, and it was actually edited twice, and then I had it beta red before that, and you know, made some changes based on that, and then I've hired a marketing company, I hired a publishing company. So I'm I'm trying to take the steps that I understand to be positive to make it successful, but my biggest issue is I don't know what's right and I don't know what's wrong because I've never done this before and I don't live in this world, right? I don't live in the publishing world, I live in the insurance world. So uh I've tripped over my my own feet quite a few times in this process, but I'm trying to make it a learning experience and no. That the next time I do it, I will hopefully be doing it more efficiently and without the hiccups.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's how we learn. It's trial and error and doing it one way, and oops, that was wrong. Let's try it this way, you know. So, and especially like you said, if you're not already in that world or from that world, that's the only way to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

So it just stinks when it costs you more money.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Yeah, I know. Believe me, that's what I'm looking at now. Everything I look at is like dollar sign, dollar sign. I'm like, oh, do I really want to do this?

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah. It's like, is it two dollar signs or three dollar signs? And which one's actually better? And I mean, you could almost just throw a dart at it and and be right sometimes. It's it's really hard to figure out.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah. So was there ever a point that you almost gave up?

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Yeah. And it was it was when I got really frustrated with the publishing company that I'd hired because they were going to edit it and format it and do all of these things, and they were just doing a terrible job. Terrible job. And I almost just scrapped the whole thing. But instead, I I took a step back and I took a breath and I talked to my wife and I I let her know what was going on and that it wasn't it wasn't going to get fixed in any way that I wanted it to be fixed. So we we sat down and figured out what our next step should be to you know get it moving forward in a positive way, with you know, still expensive, but it wasn't anything that was going to break the bank or make us destitute. So it it just I had to take some pauses instead of instead of just throwing the whole thing out the window. Uh I can be I don't want to say I can be hot-headed, but I can be uh I I can be quick to make decisions sometimes without always thinking them through for good and for bad. And I I had to realize, you know, like this is an adult professional decision, so take a breath. And it doesn't hurt to take some time to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Right. So do all of your stories explore difficult moral questions, or is that just naturally how your imagination works?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I don't do it intentionally. I write stories that I find interesting. So while while I knew that her final decision was going to have a you know a moral question around it, the rest of it just kind of came organically as I was writing the book. Uh and then the first story that I wrote, there's definitely some moral issues in there. And at times they're funny, at least I think they're funny. I read it and I laugh still, and my wife just thinks I'm crazy because I'm laughing at something I've read six or seven times. And then the one that I'm working on right now, you know, there there are moral issues built into it, but once again, it's for the sake of the story. It's it's not anything that I'm you know trying to get across or point out or make some parallel to the current world. I want to tell a story that I enjoy that other people are going to enjoy, and I'm not trying to fix the world through my writing. There's enough people trying to do that. I just want people to be entertained.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Gotcha. So if someone finishes the mark, what conversation do you hope that they have afterwards?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

The first question that I want them to like, like if you were doing a book club, the first question is, what is wrong with the author? Why is he crazy? But what I really would love for people to get out of this is time is is important and it is finite. And despite the fact, you know, that we might live 70, 80 years, the end's coming, and we need to enjoy the time that we have while we can and not keep pushing things off under the back burner and get to it latest because sometimes there isn't a later.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Exactly. Life happens and you never know what's gonna happen in that life, and you're not guaranteed 70 or 80 years. No. So yeah, that's what that's what I tell people about travel that you know, get out and do it now. Don't say I'm gonna do it when I retire, because you may not be able to when you retire, or you may not make it to retirement to do it. So if you can do it now, get out and take one trip a one trip a year. It doesn't have to be anywhere far. Just go somewhere and see something that you've always wanted to see and make a memory.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

So yeah, my my wife twists my arm a lot with travel. I enjoy the travel, but the you know, the insurance part of me is like, oh, we're going to this country, we could get kidnapped or murdered. And she just is like, you know what, at least we went somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

It's fun though.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

And if you get kidnapped and you make it back, then you got a great story to tell. There's another book for you right there, TA.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

So I mean I can't I can't write nonfiction. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Well, you can make it fiction. Nobody has to know it's a real story, so that's fair. That's fair. So if you could live inside one fictional universe, which would it be?

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Oh, I would uh I wish you would have prepped me with that question. I don't think I have an answer for that. And the reason being, like, all of the good fictional worlds are heavy in conflict, right? Mm-hmm. And as much as I like writing about conflict, I am a I am not an adversarial person. Like, I try to avoid conflict. So it would have to be some type of kids' book.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Oh, you're joining the Disney story, are you?

SPEAKER_01 27:38

I I'm I if it had to be real life, probably. I'll put a dress on if it means I don't get beat up by somebody.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

So, what's one book that completely changed the way you think about storytelling?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Cujo. And that was really oh yeah, and that was because I got to the end and I'm like, oh my god, the kid died. He died. I'd never read a book like that before. They all had neat little bows on them where everything was happy at the end. And this was not, and I fell in love with it. Like Stephen King's my favorite author. And I love how most of his books end on a oh my goodness, I can't believe that just happened. And I I've really taken that into my soul and run with it in my own writing.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

I like that. That's actually one of my favorite movies, is Kujo.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

You know, I liked it until the end because they did not follow the book and the kids. I was so mad. I think I was yelling at the TV. And I was a kid, you know, I was a I was a young teenager. I'm like, you did it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Well, they should have reached out and asked you about it before they did the movie. So they should have.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Yep. And they probably made it before I was born, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

And if your fictional world from the mark became reality tomorrow, what part of modern society do you think we'd miss the most? And what part might we be better off without?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Oh, my answer's gonna be the same. Technology. Like, like our freaking cell phones, right? Like, put the phone down because power plants are gonna go down, communication centers are gonna go down, and we're not gonna be able to look everything up, and we're gonna actually have to figure things out on our own. So, you know, we would miss that. But I also think it really hinders what we do as humans and how we interact with each other, or you know, the fact that it's caused such a lack of interaction between us. I really feel like that's stifling. I mean, my my wife and I went out to a restaurant tonight for dinner, and it's like the host barely wants to smile at you. It's like you're bothering them because you know they have to put their phone down for a second. I feel like the answer to both of those questions is the same.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, I I was talking about that with another person that I interviewed a few months ago. We were talking about the nostalgia of pre-internet, and we were talking about when you had to used to send letters. That was the only way you had to communicate back and forth to somebody who lived long distance, you know, and you had to wait weeks to get a letter back in reply. And the anticipation, you know, was part of the excitement of the whole letter exchange thing. And nobody remembers that nowadays. If you can't pick up the phone or whatever and instantly, you know, message somebody or respond to somebody, then everybody freaks out. Oh my god, they're dead. They didn't respond to me in one second, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I have sent the Are You Dead text because one of my kids hasn't responded to me within an appropriate amount of time, which for them is like two days. So I give them a little leeway, but yeah, I I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah. But, you know, I think I love technology. Don't get me wrong. It it's amazing that we have it, but I still miss the days pre-internet when uh it was just so much fun because you had so much more, like you say, people weren't on their phones all the time. You were actually talking to people face to face, you had real conversations, you actually had to drive to go see somebody. It wasn't just a FaceTime call or whatever. So yeah, I kind of missed those days.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

And they had their purpose. Like right now, we're using technology, and I think it's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, you're 2,000 miles away from me or whatever it is. I think that's great that we can do this. I do feel like it's gone to an extreme and it has caused some social issues.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Not even including social media, just the way that you know people interact with each other, and that to me is is disappointing.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Yeah, that's I agree with that. That's what I think too. But yeah, using it for what we're doing right now is amazing. And the fact that now you can go online and if you want to find out about something, just type it in and boom, it's right there, versus you know, you had to get a book and look it up in the encyclopedia. Yeah. So yeah. Well, TA, I love that your book isn't really about the apocalypse, it's more about humanity and about the choices that we make and the people we become and what survives when everything else falls apart. Those are the kinds of stories that stay with readers long after they finish the last chapter. Tell readers or listeners where they can find you and your books. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

So my website is ta Thompsonwriter.com. And you can get my book on Amazon. It's under the mark by TA Thompson. And then I am not a huge social media person, but I have a Facebook page and it is t.a.thompson. Come follow me there. And um, you can I like to throw out daily questions around you know, around books and what people like to read and what they don't like to read, and I'm just trying to get a little conversation going around.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Awesome. And yes, make sure, folks, if you go to Amazon, don't just put in the mark, because there's several books that are named the mark. Make sure you put in the mark by TA Thompson to get the right book.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Yeah, I should have done a little more research on that end, but I was too excited.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

I do like the name, but yeah, the first time I went and typed it in, I was like, oh my gosh, like three or four books named Max popped up, and I'm like, ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah, yeah, it was a little shocking.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah. But thank you so much for joining me tonight, TA. I appreciate it. And uh, we will make sure to have all your social media contacts and everything on our website. Each one of our guests has a dedicated webpage on our site. So people will be able to go there and get all of your contact information on one page. It's also going to have your episode recording there. And I do put out a blog for each episode that I record with someone. So we'll have the blog out there as well. Thanks. I can't wait to read that. That'll be interesting. Yeah, I'll make sure to send you the link once I have that up and going. And if today's episode made you think, share it with the reader in your life who loves stories that challenge assumptions and ask difficult questions. Because sometimes fiction helps us understand ourselves better than reality ever could. So until next time, keep traveling your story and keep making memories for life.