Author Bio

My name is Michael Mountain. I’m twenty two years old and I live in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the cradle of Humankind. I am the author of ‘Alfakyn’, a Fantasy novel about a man who is betrayed by his brother, and his quest for revenge. The novel is available for download as an eBook here.

When I was eleven years old, I was not into reading at all. As far as I was concerned, it was boring. The books that I was given to read at school barely held my attention for five minutes, and I was a whole level behind every other child in my grade.

Then one day, I fell ill with the flu. It was a nightmare. For three weeks I didn’t even have the energy to get out of bed. I was on holiday at the time too, so I didn’t even have the thought that I was missing school to console me. I would just sit in my PJ’s all day watching T.V.

For a little kid who just wanted to go outside and play in the sun with his friends, it was terrible. Then one afternoon, about a week into this torture, I was lying on the couch with my mom and my dad, and my dad said something that would change my life. He said that we should take a drive to the closest mall and buy a book.

I wasn’t interested at all, but I wanted out of the house. So I got dressed, did my best to tame my mop of hair an off we went. We browsed the bookstore for what felt like ages, and soon I began to regret coming out. I wasn’t interested in the books, I wanted to go back home and play playstation. My mom was standing in the kids section, reading the blurb on the back of the first Harry Potter book. I walked up to her, my head hanging, sighing as loud as I could.

My dad joined us there soon after and decided that he would buy Harry Potter, if only because my mom wanted to read it. I didn’t choose a book, I didn’t want one.

When we got home, I flopped onto the couch and began looking for a movie I hadn’t seen yet.

My mom nagged at me to read Harry Potter, and after an hour or two of this, I caved. I was bored, there was nothing else to do, and I secretly wanted to prove to myself that this book was just like any other. I knew that I wouldn’t enjoy it, and so I (rather masochistically for an eleven year old) sat down to read it. And then everything changed.

I loved it. It was the most amazing book I had ever read, and even though it took me three days to read nineteen pages, I was hooked. I finished the book and begged my parents to the buy the second and the third. Two months later, the fourth book came out and I dragged my parents along to the midnight release at our local mall.

I began to read other books, looking for things similar to Harry Potter, and before the year was out I was two levels up in my reading at school.

I remember thinking one day, about two years later, that it would be the coolest thing on Earth to write books for a living. Not because I thought it was easy, or because you can do it from home, but because I wanted to do for others what J.K. Rowling did for me.

I went through school, keeping my dream a secret, afraid of what the adults would say. When I was sixteen, I eventually told my principle that I wanted to be an author. He pushed me to take journalism instead because “It’s pretty much the same thing right? Except journalism is a real job.”

I did what he said. I stopped writing and focused on school. I excelled in English, and all my teachers agreed that I would make a fine journalist. I forced myself to be happy every time I heard them say it, and after a while it worked. I would smile and nod and describe my plans to study journalism as soon as possible.

Then I finished school. I decided to take a gap year, maybe do a few courses, and learn some new skills, before jetting off to varsity. The first course I did was a creative writing course through the University of Cape Town and Random House-Struik.

After the first module, I realised that that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. All of my assignments were praised and I was told by my tutor that if I kept at it, I would be published someday.

I dropped the idea of journalism, and told my parents that I was going o be an author. They were a little horrified I think.

For three years, I wrote, trying my best to perfect my novel. Sometimes I would stalk away from my computer in disgust, lamenting my failure as an author and a human being. Other days I would sit at my keyboard for five or six hours and the words would just flow.

I sit here now, and I look back at that eleven year old boy, and I think about how far I’ve come. I may not have worked constantly toward my dream, but I never forgot it. And neither should you.