Hello, my name is Alexander Casillas, and welcome to the first article in the Four Elements Press LGBTQ Author Series. This week I will be introducing the goals of this series, myself as a gay writer, and my contemporary fantasy novel. I started Four Elements Press to help uplift the voices of silenced communities, and this series is an important step in building the connections of community necessary for us all to thrive as we progress into the 21st Century. 

Throughout the LGBTQ Author Series I will introduce you to LGBTQ authors working on a variety of projects and from a variety of backgrounds. They will be sharing their motivations for writing, the messages behind their work, what they hope to convey to the LGBTQ community, and how their work speaks to the vision of the LGBTQ community of tomorrow.

I can’t overstate the importance of a series like this given all we are experiencing now. While billionaires and governments across the country are trying to silence voices, it is so crucially important for us now to uplift each other and find each other. We matter. Our work matters. Our perspectives matter. Our families matter. And the future is what we actively make it or passively lose to the vision of others who work every day to snuff out our existence, our resistance, and our will to empower ourselves and our community the way we’re doing here with each of our featured authors.

As for myself and my work, I am a gay Puerto Rican author on the Jersey Shore. I am a Stockton University alumnus with degrees in literature, creative writing, and philosophy and religion. I’ve always loved to read and write fiction, nonfiction, poetry, philosophy, and for the last five years I’ve been working on bringing readers The Immortal Philosophers series, starting with the Chronicles of Dylan Eaglegod Book One, “Sunset in the Valley of Now and Then.” This is the first in a seven book series that explores the coming out and coming into of self liberation and immortal power that Dylan has been held back from his whole life by the hands of sinister, homophobic, childhood friends. This book tells the story of how Dylan escapes Manhattan for Ocean City, New Jersey, where he’s met with the struggle of trying to meet new friends and love interests while Joshua, the ringleader of his old friend group, is after him for more nefarious reasons than Dylan ever thought imaginable.

But it’s not for the purpose of telling a great contemporary fantasy story that I wrote the novel or started the series. I wrote this novel over some of the most trying times of my life. What started as an exercise of writing short stories from a character I tried to create who was similar to my partner meeting someone similar to myself, turned into a series where these characters quickly took on lives of their own. As my life started bleeding into the pages, I found myself speaking too to the struggles of my friends. Everything I couldn’t explain in person, or translate to them through conversation, I tried to convey through Dylan’s story. Because in the way Dylan uses his first week down the Jersey Shore to find himself, his story can be used as a guide of self discovery for all. I wanted and hoped for this series to help us all find and hold onto ourselves in this life as we are all whittled down by the demands and pressures of an increasingly abusive society.  

Throughout the seven book series, I hope to introduce people to famous and infamous philosophers and lesser popularized figures from history in an effort to highlight the incredible heroes of humanity. I hope to introduce readers to popularized and glorified villains who ought not be glorified, and I hope to help this world and our society heal from a state of helplessness to that of individual and collective empowerment. As the Immortal Philosophers say, to will is to live, and to live without will is to not really live at all. Dare to will, and life will bend for you as you step into the new possibilities of every new day. Be receptive to opportunity. Move in the direction of growth. And make your dreams your realities the way Dylan learns to use the powers he never knew he was capable of. And never forget there’s a little immortal power inside of you too.

Find the novel on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and order from your local bookstore. Signed & bulk copies exclusively through Four Elements Press.

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