Writer Spotlight: Jeff Stone

Martial arts, homemade business card, five-house auction, and a black belt test at the Shaolin Temple: novelist Jeff Stone

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet  middle grade writer and kung fu black belt Jeff Stone.

Many 70’s kids were obsessed with martial arts movies and shows. We all recall David Carradine in “Kung Fu.”  Which series or movies influenced young Jeff enough that he would pursue Kung Fu and Tai Chi throughout his life?

My parents were pretty strict about how much time they’d let me sit parked in front of the tv, so there wasn’t a specific series or movie that captured my imagination. I was just fascinated by any snippet of whatever random kung fu movie or tv show episode I managed to catch. Kung Fu featuringDavid Carradine was definitely one I recognized and was always excited to see, and of course anything featuring Bruce Lee.

 

When did you stop watching and start practicing martial arts? Was there an incident or instructor that changed you from a dabbling hobbyist to a lifelong disciple?

I never got the opportunity to learn martial arts as a kid because the classes cost too much. I’ve been fortunate, though, to have played many other sports throughout my life, some at quite a high level. 

I didn’t take my first martial arts lesson until I was 30 years old. It was kung fu, and I’ve been hooked ever since—nearly 25 years. I no longer practice the kung fu system in which I earned a black belt, but I’m currently studying tai chi with a renowned master from Hong Kong.

You’ve got a list of various jobs you’ve held over the years, including photographer, maintenance guy, ballroom dance instructor and concert promoter. Aside them all being jobs you found yourself doing, was there a common denominator to them?

I get bored easily. That’s why I tell kids that being a writer is a great vocation because you can constantly change the content you focus on while still putting food on the table. 

Once I found writing, or perhaps once writing found me, it became the common thread between jobs. In addition to writing and publishing fiction, I’ve held multiple corporate technical writing leadership roles, primarily in mechatronics. 

I’m currently leading a global team of nine technical writers in the creation of software documentation for autonomous warehouse robots. You just never know where writing will take you.

 

At one point, married with a child, you were let go from one of these jobs and at a low point. Your four-year-old daughter handed you a scrap of paper, calling it your new business card. On the paper the words, “Daddy Write Books.” Was your daughter’s belief in you what gave you the courage to launch this long-shot career?

My amazing daughter’s belief didn’t give me courage, it gave me a desperately needed boost of life-sustaining energy, like strapping on an oxygen mask at high altitude. With her at my side, I was able to complete the climb. My son is pretty amazing, too.

 

You wrote Tiger, the first of a seven book Five Ancestors series. The manuscript went to auction, with a number of big publishers competing for the rights. Describe for those of us who dream of such an unlikely occurrence, what that experience was like.

It was surreal. There was a five-house auction: Random House, Penguin Putnam, Scholastic, Harper Collins, and Harcourt. I assumed the auction would be one insane day with my agent fielding multiple, simultaneous phone calls while frantically typing emails and calling me with updates. It wasn’t like that at all! 

It was glacially slow, taking nearly three months, like the world’s longest, lamest poker game. Every time one company made an offer, the hand was shown to all the others who then had to decide if they were going to fold, call, or raise. In the end, Random House made the most sense for reasons that went beyond the life-changing advance. 

Chief among them was the fact that they had a gaping hole in their list. Scholastic had Harry Potter, and most of the others already had an established middle-grade franchise. Random House did not. In their offer letter, the Random House team said, “We want Jeff to be our Lemony Snicket.” So, yeah, they won.

 

You were adopted by a loving family, but began a fifteen-year quest to find your birth mother. A week after you completed the manuscript for Tiger, you found her and reunited. Please paint for us how this real-life drama came to pass.

I won the lottery by being adopted by my parents. They’re the absolute best. At the same time, was always extremely curious about my genetic roots and my life before my parents picked me up at the orphanage. 

Long story short, after my 15-year search some laws changed in Michigan that allowed me to hire a court-appointed confidential intermediary, who in my case was a social worker with a private investigator’s license. I knew exactly where the records were housed, but I wasn’t allowed access to them because I was adopted during a time of closed adoption. 

I told the intermediary what I knew, and she found my birthmother in less than an hour. My birthmother enthusiastically agreed to a reunion, and the rest is a wonderful history that is still being written. If my birthmother had wanted anonymity, it would have been granted, and I’d still be searching.

 

Your Five Ancestors series features five orphan monks, residing and training at the secret Cangzhen Temple.  The temple is attacked and destroyed, and only the youngsters escape with their lives. They are now on a quest for survival and to uncover the secrets of their past. Was it eerie coincidence how closely your life mirrored those of your protagonists? Or fate?

No coincidence, I put my life into these books. I am the characters, and they are me. 

A prime example of this is the villain’s frustration over his name having been changed. I never realized this, but I had a different birth certificate. Every child born in a hospital in the USA is issued one. If they’re adopted, the name is changed, first name included. That hit me pretty hard. It hits the villain even harder. He’s also an orphan, and his name change is a key element of what drives him to become the antagonist. 

The name given to each temple orphan reflects their true nature—their animal spirit—and by extension, the animal kung fu style they study to mastery. Get a child’s name wrong, or worse intentionally change it, and you change who the child becomes.

 

Tiger (2005), Monkey (2005), Snake (2006), Crane (2007), Eagle (2008), Mouse (Mantis in the U.K. and Australia) (2009), and Dragon (2010) followed. What did it take to produce a middle grade novel a year? What was your writing routine?

It was brutal. My original contract was to deliver two novels per year. TIGER, MONKEY, and SNAKE were all released six months apart, but then I was unable to keep up that pace and thankfully Random House allowed me to shift to one manuscript delivered every 10 months or so. 

The books aren’t overly long as far as page count, but the plot in each is extremely dense, equating to that of books with 2-3 times as many pages. 

Also, I was doing 30-day book tours, dozens upon dozens of school visits,

School visit, Shanghai, China

conferences keynotes, media several times each week, and a million other things—all while being expected to write. Take a look at the Events page on my website and you’ll get partial glimpse of the madness. 

I had no choice but to write on the road in hotel rooms and on airplanes, which I hated. Don’t get me wrong, Random House never forced me to do any of this. I just knew how important these things were to keep the momentum going. It was my efforts OUTSIDE the writing that actually helped Random House decide to relax my deadlines. 

When I wasn’t traveling, I binge wrote at home to catch up. I rented an office a few miles from my house, and I would sometimes write 48 hours straight without sleep. I need absolute focus to do anything, writing included. I have no concept of what multitasking is.

 

Your wife was born in Hong Kong and fluent in several Chinese languages. But what kind of research did it take to accurately portray 1650 China?

My former wife and I had a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony in Hong Kong in the mid-nineties, and I returned to both Hong Kong and mainland China multiple times to scour many different temples and other historic locations that are far, far older than 370 years. 

I did my best to get the locations and day-to-day things as accurate as possible in my books, but the language is neutral and modern, which is why the stories work just as well today as they did nearly 20 years ago. 

The most complicated historic things to convey were time and measurements, neither of which can be translated directly into feet or meters or minutes or hours. Even the calendar was different, as you can see in the opening of each book: 4348—Year of the Tiger (1650 AD).

 

Then you started a new series, “Out of the Ashes,” based in present-day America. Did it take some real effort to extricate yourself from Chinese history?

I wrote a present-day trilogy precisely because I wanted to extricate myself from historic China! Ha ha! Seriously. I was so tired of saying things like, The hole was as deep as a man is tall, or He stood an arm’s length away. 

Despite needing a respite, the trilogy wouldn’t be a Five Ancestors spinoff without some serious connections to the past. There’s enough history in the trilogy to meld multiple styles of modern bicycle racing with ancient kung fu. 

It may sound like a huge stretch, but it’s actually not. Kung fu is as timeless as it is all-encompassing. Kung fu literally means, acquired skill or accomplishment through effort.

 

All the while you pursued the rigorous training and discipline of Kung Fu. You tested for your black belt at the Shaolin Temple in China. That must have been exciting and nerve-wracking. What do you remember about this challenge?

I don’t remember anything! Ha ha! No joke. The test took well over an hour, and I honestly don’t remember one single thing. I was so in the zone. 

Kung fu black belt test, Shaolin Temple

When the test started, there were just the twenty or so black belts that I was traveling with, as well as a young woman from our association who tested along with me. When we finished, I came out of that hyper-focused tranced and saw close to a hundred spectators and five Shaolin monks! 

To be clear, I tested for my black belt at the temple, but the monks didn’t issue it to me. The style I learned is based in the USA, and the Grandmaster had a strong enough relationship with the Abbot of Shaolin Temple that our group was allowed to visit and I was allowed to take the test there, along with my co-tester. 

I wish I remembered at least a little bit! Thankfully, there are some pics. I do remember touring the temple compound after the test and also climbing the small mountain behind Shaolin Temple to visit Bodhidharma’s cave, which is at least something. I was so tired at the end of that day!

 

Your alma mater is Michigan State University. What major did you pursue? How did young Jeff Stone’s plans for the future line up with what happened?

I entered MSU as an engineering student and came out 3.5 years later with a bachelor’s degree in English/Creative Writing, and I also fulfilled all the requirements for a second bachelor’s degree in Journalism, plus I have a cognate in dance (long story). 

Additionally, I managed to squeeze in a six- month, full-time technical writing internship at General Motors Advanced Engineering Staff, which paved the way for ALL my writing adventures.

I’ve received accolades from the American Library Association/YALSA, International Literacy Association, Children’s Book Council, and many other organizations for my books’ ability to resonate with reluctant middle-grade readers. The truth is, it’s just clear, concise technical writing.

 

You were a writing coach and a college writing instructor. Is your writing success something you can teach others?

I still am a writing coach, but now it’s mostly mentoring the nine technical writers on my team at the W-2 gig. I also still occasionally do SCBWI critiques, which I’ve been doing for 20+ years. I’d teach or coach fiction more often, if I had time. 

As for teaching others writing success, I’d say, no. It can’t be taught. Success is something you earn. You have to put in the work. You, and you alone.

 

Your last book was published in 2014. Finally, almost a decade later, the rights reverted back to you, and you had a plan. What is it? What does it take to become your own publisher?

Yikes! Answering this is a novel unto itself! Owning your own small press takes MUCH more work than I realized, especially since I’m doing everything myself. 

This includes typesetting, cover design, ebook programming, website creation, marketing, PR, sales, accounting, media relations, advertising…the list goes on. I’m fortunate in that I’ve done most of these things at one time or another in the 35 years I’ve spent in and out of corporate America, but lumping them together simultaneously is almost too much to manage. 

cover redesign by author

In my case, every function is 10X because there are 10 novels to re-release. It’s difficult for me to believe I’m saying this, but after spending well over a year slaving away, weeknights and weekends, TIGER was re-released on Amazon in early January 2024! 

The remaining titles are scheduled to release roughly every six weeks for the remainder of the year. The last one comes out on Christmas Eve! So. Much. Work. But absolutely worth it.

 

Please list any social media platforms you wish to share.

I’m currently knocking the rust off my socials, but I’m @jeffstonebooks everywhere. That would be FB, IG, X, and soon TikTok and YT. The place I’d most like to share is my website with its newsletter signup: www.jeffstonebooks.com.