Mark Beard lives in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, USA, writing and marketing for the vacation rental industry. When not advertising the virtues of the Florida Gulf Coast, he delves into them on foot or kayak. His travels, which span North America and Central America, lend influence to the settings in his stories, facets of many scenes pulled from real locations.

I enjoyed a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. We hiked through the forests with remarkable trees, larger than most found on Earth. We reached a waterfall that cut through the dark rock and we spent time exploring the fascinating terrain above it while we overlooked the precipice. Our final outing took us to Mt Rainier itself, where the weather cloaked the mountain beneath heavy white and gray clouds. Only once, in the late afternoon, when the air above cooled and the warm drafts rose, did we get to see the magestic sides of the mountain. It was larger than I imagined. It is moments like these that occupy places in my memory, waiting for the chance to be written down on the page as the setting for some fantastic event. I strive to make the locations in my books alluring and aesthetic in the hopes that my readers will enjoy being there with my characters.

Mark Beard

This year also included a quick visit to Colorado for a conference on social media. Crossing the continental divide offered an opportunity to get out of the car and look around. At mid-summer, the winds still blew chill but most of the snow had melted. We continued past the ski resorts on into the western reaches of the Rocky Mountains where the humidity dropped and the temperatures were perfect. The time zone difference roused me from bed early and so I used the extra morning hours to explore the red-hued mountains surrounding the town. The timing of the trip could not have been better. I was in the middle of writing scenes for Witches of the Watchtower in which the characters climb foothills and mountainsides to reach a destination. It was a chance to absorb firsthand what my characters might experience. A photograph from that trip would up on the cover of the book!

Mark Beard