Author Bio
William Long is the author of the Timecrack Adventures series – Timecrack, Copanatec and Varakite – time travel stories with a historical background of real events in other worlds. Other books include An Unexpected Diagnosis, a collection of Irish short stories along with his own personal story when diagnosed with prostate cancer. How I Wrote My First Book/10 Tips is a popular book that describes his early experience on how he started writing late in life.
A long and varied career in sales and marketing, included running a business designing and promoting branded goods for high profile clients such as Coca Cola and Glasgow Rangers. It also gave him the opportunity during his travels to meet and enjoy the company of a wide range of interesting people. A valuable experience for any aspiring author. Around this time, one of his best-known creations was the internationally famous Five Nations Rugby Championship tie, which is now regarded as a collector’s item.
In the late1960s he moved to Canada. After working long hours and double shifts in the electrolysis department for Union Carbide in Toronto, he left to explore the rest of the country. He contracted to deliver a Volkswagen Beetle car to a client in Vancouver, driving alone the 3,500 miles to British Columbia. He spent several months there, until he decided to join two other travellers to explore more of the northern territory, before crossing the border into the USA.
Another unexpected journey beckoned. In a Los Angeles coffee bar, he met an agent who introduced him to George Englund. The famous movie producer, living in Beverly Hills, was looking for a driver to deliver a Toyota Landcruiser, packed with movie equipment, to Miami Port, Florida. Englund was about to shoot the film of Wilbur Smith’s book Dark of the Sun in Jamaica and needed the Landcruiser for a special scene in the movie.
William agreed, and with his two friends they embarked on a 2,500 mile journey across the southern states and Mexico, to Florida. After delivering the vehicle to the dockside, William was offered a part as an extra in the film, but decided to join his friends in Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, to explore the islands and the beaches. It was also time to return home to Northern Ireland, to be with his elderly parents.
His travels lasted nearly two years and he plans to write about them shortly as a memoir. Since then, he has continued to explore the ancient cultures in Mexico’s Yucatan, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Spain, Italy, and nearer home, Newgrange in Ireland. After a visit to the Yucatan’s ancient pyramids, the possibility of other dimensions and new worlds spurred the idea of writing a sci-fi/fantasy time travel series. He created the first book Timecrack, in spite of the loss of the original manuscript – which might be a story in itself!
My Books
