We chat with author Rob Cameron about Daydreamer, which follows an eleven-year-old boy who copes with the challenges of his city life by weaving his reality into a magical realm of dragons, foxes, and trolls—until he must use the power of his creativity to save both of his worlds from destructive forces.
Hi, Rob! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a big old nerd from Rochester, New York. I’ve a degree in applied linguistics and a tight group of friends to play D&D and practice martial arts with. At some point, I grew up, got married and leveled up to husband plus daddy x2. Slowly but surely, I am indoctrinating my oldest daughter into the way of the geek. My wife so far has proven impervious to the dark side. The force is strong in that one.
By day, I’m a public school ENL (English as a New Language) teacher in Brooklyn. I come from a family with a tradition in education. My grandmother was a principal of the largest elementary school in Belize. My uncle who helped raise me when I was young is a teacher. My mom was director of human resources for the City School District of Rochester.
By night, I’m a daddy. Somewhere in there, I’ve found time to produce a story podcast, run Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, the largest most active speculative fiction writers group in New York City, write and publish essays, short stories, poems, a novelette, and finally, a novel. I am very tired. Did I mention I’m narcoleptic?
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve always loved stories and art, but the writing took awhile. It was something that came easily to me in school, but I never thought about it as a serious career path. That all changed when a really insightful person named Alex noticed how I’d written about two hundred pages of notes and dialogue for a D&D campaign (complete with sound track and trailers) that I had homebrewed. She inspired me to take writing seriously and even introduced me to KGB Bar Fantastic Fiction, the Mecca of speculative fiction writers in New York. That led to the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings. After I learned about the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, it was all uphill from there.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Three Little Pigs Walt Disney Read Along from Goldenbook. I read it on my Teddy Ruxpin storytelling bear. It was great until my sister broke his mouth off. Then it was Teddy Ruxpin, storytelling nightmare fuel.
- The one that made you want to become an author: It wasn’t a book. It was a person. Then it was the process. I remembered how much I love words, how much I love stories. I realized that I had my own stories to tell and that maybe, if I worked at it, people might want to hear them.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Dragonlance Chronicles gave me dragon fever when I was eight. By nightlight, I seared dragons into my brain until the pages were stain-ridden, the covers disintegrated, and my eye muscles developed a disturbing twitch. I collected and read every single book spawned from that massive series, even the cookbook. I must have drawn hundreds of dragons. Then, right before I went away to college, a friend of my mom’s lost her house to a fire. I gave her kids my Dragonlance collection. I missed my books, but I don’t regret it. I got to pass on dragon fever.
Your debut novel, Daydreamer, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Dragons vs Trolls vs foxes vs Black Boys.
What can readers expect?
To fall in love with Charles. To poke holes in the barriers between what’s real and what’s made up. They can expect a scary, exciting, emotional tale full of creatures and secrets and love. They can expect Charles to get what he needs, though not exactly what he wants.
Where did the inspiration for Daydreamer come from?
I saw them, Charles and Glory. Characters show up unannounced from the Otherplace. Guests from this country—to which I’ve never been invited personally, a little rude to be honest— simply appear. This often happens when I write without direction and let my hands do what they will on the page.
Charles was staring at something only he could see, like if he blinked it would get away, a tricky fish on a hook. His expression was one-part awe and one-part intense focus. I just knew he was the kind of child who would run the sky on clouds.
I immediately knew Glory was bigger inside than out. Eyes of green. Skin of black. Smoke of gold rising from between his teeth. If Samuel L. Jackson was a dragon, he would be Glory (I have no insider knowledge to confirm that Mr. Jackson is not in fact a dragon). I also knew he’d lived more life than he could possibly contain inside of himself. Too much history to remember; a problem to be sure. But the important thing to remember about Glory is that he flies when he wants to. You would know him by his laugh, nearly identical with thunder and rain.
I saw Glory and Charles. But I hadn’t heard them yet. Then happenstance pulled on strands of fate. I was teaching fifth grade at the time and all the classes went on a field trip to see author Patricia Polacco speak. Patricia grew up in a home where reading and telling stories was elevated to ritual, a ritual that she could not participate in because of her neurodivergence. She felt cursed until an arts teacher helped her break it. And now she writes and paints. Her experience helped me unlock Charles’s voice and Glory’s reaction to it.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Building the worlds contained within Charles imagination was a lot of fun. So was exploring the lands of Dream Folk that live in the City. Writing Ruby, one of Charles’s imaginary friends (she’s Peter Pan but with a moral center).
I really enjoyed writing the stories that the dragon tells Charles. There’s just something about having a story told to you that is its own kind of magic (literally in Daydreamer) and I absolutely loved writing that experience into the book.
“It was Br’er Coyote who done figured out skinwalking first. He was creeping up on Br’er Snake to eat ’im or play a trick right as Br’er Snake was shedding his skin.”
The story plays out right in front of me. Bright watercolors bleed into everything, and I almost want to cry. Br’er Coyote’s steps pop with little sly blue puddles round his paws, and Br’er Snake’s hisses rattle sunrise-orange trails off his tongue.
“Then inspiration slapped Br’er Coyote. Slapped ’im so hard, he was almost mad. When Br’er Snake slithered off, Br’er Coyote made himself kind of like a cloud, and slipped into that old snakeskin! Perfect fit. ‘Lookin’ mighty fine in this old snakeskin,’ he said to himself.”
What do you hope readers take away from Daydreamer?
After you read Daydreamer, I hope you have come to know that:
- All your experiences are valid and should be explored, not locked in a suitcase.
- “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Semisonic
- You are not defined by the things that you cannot do.
- There is good love and there is bad love. It takes work to see the difference.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Though I’d rather be doing this than breaking bricks all day, nothing about being an author is easy. But my writers group, Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, helps to make it fun. Choosing Barry Goldblatt as my agent was one of the best decisions I ever made. And I feel blessed that I get to work with Liesa Abrams. I’ve been spoiled by a dragon’s hoard of good people. I might be kind of a brat now.
What’s next for you?
By the time your readers see this, I’ll be on a plane to Glasgow for Worldcon! And I have my first novelette coming out in Lightspeed Magazine later this year, as well as in a university press I’m not allowed to name yet. My adult novel Burn It All Done: The True Story of Hurricane Jane is almost done!
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
My reading list is wild. They mostly have to do with projects I’m working on.
- I just finished Moon Witch Spider King by Marlon James
- Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation of Beowulf
- Spiderman & X-Men comics!
- Dear Medusa by Olivia A Cole
- Meet Me on Mercer Street by Booki Vivat (reading that with my oldest daughter)
- I just picked up Blood Emperor by Tracy Hickman. There were dragons and (what looked like) Black people on the cover.
- Breath Warmth & Dream by Zig Zag Claybourne. Zig breathes beauty back into the world.
