July the 11th happens to be a benchmark date because it was Ethan Sparks’ 14th birthday. In Books One, Two and Three in the series, Ethan was 13. In Books Four and Five, he will be 14. Book Six, the last book, Ethan will turn 15 years old.

With the publication of Book Three (scheduled for November 2010), I will be halfway through the series. At this point in my career, Ethan Sparks Adventures is reaching its critical mass stage. By this, I mean that the series is really starting to catch on.

On July the 1st, my interview in the Kernersville News came out. It was featured on the first page of the Lifestyles section, complete with a photo of me and a prominent picture of Book One, Escape of the Terra-Cotta Soldiers.

When I first saw this published interview in my local paper, I realized that critical mass had begun. It was gratifying to see that my writer’s journey had reached this benchmark.

On August the 28th, I will be performing my 40th book signing at one of my local Barnes & Noble bookstores. This one is in Burlington, NC.

I am so grateful to Becky Carnigan, the Community Relations Manager at the Greensboro Barnes & Noble for her continuous support in scheduling book fairs and book signings. Also, Renee Johnson in High Point, Susan Ellington in Burlington, and Jane Derian in Winston-Salem.

I was also privileged to perform a “China presentation” at the Northwest Middle School in Greensboro on June the 9th.

My presentation, which I gave to 300 7th graders, was a lot of fun for both the kids and myself. I told the kids stories about my China experience with a Powerpoint that featured actual photographs of my China trip. Afterwards, the 300 7th graders and I had an invigorating Q&A. What a rush that was!

My heartfelt thanks go out to Ms. Tammy Balser, who is in charge of Social Studies for the 7th grade at Northwest Middle. My presentation was part of her seventh grade curriculum about Asia.

I would also like to thank my publicist, Ellen Berry, for all of her insight and expertise in putting together such a phenomenal Powerpoint presentation. Thanks to her, it was a major success!

My next step in my writer’s journey is for Book Three to go through its editorial process. I anticipate that this round will go much more smoothly than Book One and Two, now that I’m in my groove. I’ll let you know!

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The Back Cover Synopsis is:

From the moment Ethan Sparks lands on the Greek Island of Santorini, he thinks his assignment for The Young Explorer Magazine is a bad joke. The thirteen-year-old reporter is covering his dad’s latest archaeological dig—and it’s a weird one.  A modern-day oracle in Delphi has uttered that Poseidon’s Trident really exists. Now Ethan’s father believes the Trident is buried in a volcanic ledge under the Aegean Sea.  Dr. Sparks wants to use the latest underwater archaeology equipment to find the Trident, but his usual backers refused to fund such a ridiculous expedition.  When Spiros, a wacko billionaire comes up with the cash, Ethan wants to know why.  In his investigation with his new friend, Nico, the junior spies uncover a secret organization that would sooner kill the boys than let them reveal the truth.  It will take a lot more than spy-guy skills to escape being shark bait.

The series website can be found at: www.ethansparksadventures.com. The website will also go “live” before the end of January, 2010. Ethan can be emailed at spyguyethan@gmail.com. He will answer all emails.

The Third Book in the Juvenile Action / Adventure Series is currently being written. This time Ethan’s adventure is in Cairo, Egypt. The publication date we are striving towards will be June 15, 2010. It’s title is: Uncovering the Buried Pyramid.

Book Four is already on the drafting table. Unhinging the Secrets of Stonehenge will hopefully come out in time for the 2010 holiday season.

At this time, a location for Book Five is still not known. An E.S.L. teacher I met while doing a book signing at a Teacher’s Appreciation Reception at the Greensboro, NC Barnes & Noble suggested that Ethan go on one of his adventures at a Latino locale. Great idea! Does anyone know of an exciting archaeological site in a country where Spanish is spoken? Please comment on this blog, or e-mail spyguyethan@gmail.com with any suggestions.

Book Number Six will show Ethan at home in Chapel Hill, NC. Readers will get to meet his mom and older brother, Carter, and Ethan’s best friend Drew.  We will also visit the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And then it’s off to a Native American dig on the grounds of an old plantation. This great example of a grand North Carolina plantation built in 1860 becomes much more than a routine dig. Ethan discovers that a murder occurred there 150 years ago, and in his last investigation as a reporter for The Young Explorer magazine, he solves it. The last book in the series is eerie with spirit photography, a chilling motive for murder, and some cool forensics. It’s a real period piece, and very spooky.

Can you tell that I’m having fun writing this series? Kids find the stories a blast to read, and they’re learning about a foreign culture, embracing diversity, history, and the inner-workings of an archaeological dig.

What a journey this has been for me as well! Since the age of thirteen I have wanted to be a writer, and it took Ethan to drive me there. And he doesn’t even have a driver’s license yet!

Hope you enjoy reading about it on this blog, the website and the book series itself!

Finally, I would like to thank my publicist, Ellen Berry (no relation). Ellen has kept this 55-year-old young and in touch with technology. Who would have ever thought I’d be blogging? Honestly, I didn’t even know what a blog was until recently. The wonderful thing about Ellen is the way she can juggle all the support system that I need. She’s great at revision, website creation, logo design, and marketing — she’s turned Ethan Sparks Adventures into Ethan Sparks Enterprises.  Thank you, Ellen. I also want to sincerely thank Aric Johnson for his editorial genius, Sara Drake for her incredible contributions to the development of this series, and Russ Palmer for his wonderful insight into Greece and very clever and promising ideas. Last, and most importantly of them all, my supportive wife Jenn who pretends not to notice when I converse in all my different characters’ voices.

This dream took hold of me when I was 13. It all started with me reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger by flashlight under my bedcovers.

I clearly remember finishing Salinger’s classic coming-of-age story, putting the book down, and saying: “I want to be a writer. I want to move people with my stories.”

In the past 42 years, I have written 18 novels, two stage-plays, two movie-scripts, a dozen or more short stories, reams of poetry, and have kept a daily journal totaling almost 20,000 pages. Lots of cracked, yellow pages.

I was searching for my voice. Ironically, at the age of 55, I found that voice in a 13-year-old named Ethan Sparks. Ethan is a middle schooler who gets to go on archaeological digs with his famous father – and all because he landed an assignment with the fictional Young Explorer magazine.

In Book One, Ethan’s father, Dr. Sparks, gets to go to China to be the first foreign archaeologist to unearth one of the Terra-Cotta Soldiers. Not only does Ethan get to write a great article for the Explorer - he also cracks an artifact theft ring that sells stolen soldiers on the black market.

Disguised within an action/adventure that is driven through mystery and suspense; kids still learn about the inner-workings of an archaeological dig, a foreign culture, its people and all of its wonderful history.

In Book One, the reader gets to walk along the Great Wall with Ethan – that is, until they have to run to safety because of a sniper’s bullet.

Still, the kids get to see the Great Wall; its watch towers and turrets. The footpath itself was made wide enough to accommodate six chariots carried by horses, all riding six abreast.

After their trip to the Great Wall, they make Camp in Banpo, once an old Soviet-style block compound.

Nearby, in the village of Banpo, Ethan gets to see a Neolithical dig site, once the site of the Yangshao tribe. The remains of this matriarchal village has a little museum filled with cool weapons and tools, and dead people preserved in jars.

At this museum, Ethan meets a buddy named Chen Jun. In all the proposed eight books in The Ethan Sparks Adventures™ series, our 13-year-old hero meets a local friend his own age.  In each book , Ethan wrangles a visit to his new friend’s home and school for the purposes of his articles.

Even though we see a Chinese boy at home and at school, the mystery drives the educational visits.

The same holds true for Dr. Sparks’ archaeological team’s official visit to the Terra-Cotta Soldier Museum. This museum is in Xi’an, just five miles by van from their Camp in Banpo, and the actual center of the mystery itself.

Once again though, kids learn all about the fascinating Terra-Cotta Soldiers. Particularly, how they were constructed by an ancient assembly line to protect the First Emperor of China in his after life. Remarkably, no two of the hundreds of  thousands of soldiers look alike.

The First Emperor’s tomb not only has a vast regiment of Terra-Cotta soldiers, but also an underground palace with rivers made to run with mercury, trees and a ceiling of stars.

All throughout this fascinating history,  the mystery unfolds and drives the story with a quest, lots of  fast-paced action, as well as a suspenseful and immediate action that keeps kids reading.

All of the books in the series are narrated by 13-year-old Ethan himself. He talks to his readers, and tells them all about his exhilarating new adventures.

His entertaining narrative with its believable point of view draws kids in with his humorous and quirky coming-of-age.

To accommodate my readers’ attention spans, the chapters are short and always end with a cliff-hanger. The paragraphs are compact, and the sentences right to the point.

My goal — the reason I chose this genre — is to get kids to read. As a child, I was a voracious reader. But to be fair, in those days we only had CBS, NBC and ABC. No cable, no computers, iPhones, cell phones, Wii — or any honest-to-goodness diversion from reading.

Reading as a child, then later as a teen, was a wonderful, incredible escape. I took trips to foreign lands, met mythical people, and my imagination ran free.

If I can provide even a part of that experience to kids today, then I have finally fulfilled my dream. So far, all of the successful book signings tell me I have.

At each book signing, I place a card in the inscribed book that has the email address spyguyethan@gmail.com.

I receive an average of 22-28 emails per day from kids who write that they love my book, and when is Book Two coming out?

Book Two in The Ethan Spark Adventures series is coming out in January of 2010.

Book Two in the proposed series of eight finds Ethan in Santorini, Greece. He has one question to answer: Is Poseidon’s Trident a 3500-year-old myth, or a real artifact? Answering that question almost gets him killed.

I have received countless emails from girls telling me that they liked Escape of the Terra-Cotta Soldiers too. So Book Two has some “girl power” in it because of that great feedback.

I even received an email from an 80-year-old woman that the book is not just for kids, because she enjoyed it too. That email did not come from my mother. Instead, she called from Florida to tell me that she liked it.

Believe me, this touched me. Especially when she said, “Son, I always knew that you’d publish one of your works someday.”

She didn’t even mention that it finally happened 42 years later when I turned 55.  My mom however did mention that if freaked her out how convincing I was narrating  a story in the voice of a 13-year-old.

Some of my other friends said the same thing but in different ways. I heard, “It chilled me to the bone.” and “Woah, you really nailed the voice of a newly-baptized teen!”

I took all these remarks as a cause for celebration. Not only had my perseverance to become a published author paid off, but my childrens’ literacy goal has sparked a mission. And yes, the verb sparked is intentional.

Book Two is titled:  Drowning in the Oracle of Delphi. I may not be Greek, but I could be. Because my awe with the Greek Isles rings quite true. This is because I love Greece so. The Aegean, the Caldera, Red Beach, ancient Akrotiri, Santorini and Fira. Within this fragile  beauty is a fast-paced action adventure.

But kids will also learn about Minoan culture that thrived there 3500 years ago. They will see Professor Marinato’s awesome dig site of a complete Minoan city — all while a mysterious bullet ricochets at the site’s tin roofed entrance. Thus the mystery in Greece begins — a mystery that is driven right to the end of the story with immediate, suspenseful action that unfolds into an educational adventure. But kids will think of Ethan’s second adventure as a quick, entertaining read.

This is my goal – my mission: Keep our kids reading. Thank you Harry Potter for starting the modern-day movement!

My wish is for kids today to find enjoyment in reading without them realizing they’re learning. And at age 55, we can still have wishes.

In fact, in the spirit of genie’s lamp, I have three wishes:

1. Keep the kids reading
2. Educate them without them dwelling on it in the process
3. Call forth an adequate paycheck from my books’ royalties so my beloved wife and I can live comfortably while we grow even older together.

I have been married to an exceptional woman named Jennifer for almost 27 years. And all during our wonderful marriage, Jennifer didn’t make me get a “real” full-time career — not even once. My beautiful wife waited patiently for me to fulfill my dream of becoming a published author.

Now I have. And I’m gonna blog all about it! However, I promise you subsequent entries will not be this long.