Interview with Ken Hansen

Author of The Light of Our Yesterdays

Where are you from originally and where do you reside now?

I was born in Brookfield, WI (a Milwaukee suburb) but grew up after third grade in Columbus, WI. I live in Fitchburg, WI (a Madison suburb).

If you currently reside somewhere besides where you were born, what’s the story that lead from there to here?

Though I majored in political science at the University of Wisconsin and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law, my early political naiveté took me to a lobbying law firm in Washington, DC, where I discovered a few too many ugly truths. Turning my ambitions toward more productive endeavors, I returned to Wisconsin and ultimately served as VP & General Counsel of Epic Systems Corporation, a health care software company that grew much larger than I ever thought possible. After retiring in 2013, I once again began exploring that seemingly simple question posed so many years ago in a philosophy class: “Why?” Luckily, my incredibly patient wife of 30+ years, who helped me raise 3 great kids, kept asking me, “Why not?”

What made you decide to write and publish your first book?

I had wanted to write a novel since I was young. I began writing my first book in college, but it fortunately never even approached completion. I think I needed a few years to really study and understand people and their motivations well enough to write something worthwhile. Before I retired, I knew I would get back to writing and began thinking about how I could help readers enjoy a thrilling story while making them think, feel and find empathy for those “others” that are all too easy for them to hate.

How would you describe your books to first time readers?

The shortest description I have for The Light of Our Yesterdays is: “Desperate souls search for Truth across parallel worlds through the puzzling fog of hatred, terror and deceit.”

The novel is really two stories that merge over time until they arrive together in a parallel, double-twisting climax. As a U.S. Homeland Security investigator becomes ensnared in a thicket of terrorist puzzles and codes unraveling his troubled past, his counterpart in a parallel Earth without Christianity experiences strange visions of our world after meeting a charismatic preacher with a new message of peace and forgiveness. The two protagonists wade through intolerance, hatred and terrorism while struggling with their own skepticism as a growing connection between them unwittingly leads toward destruction, redemption, or both.

At its core, my writing employs intriguing stories to examine the self-destructive effects of various embodiments of hatred and how we might find a way out of this scourge that seems to be consuming our society and world.

Who do you feel is most likely to connect with the topics you write about?

Anyone who enjoys intriguing stories, but especially stories with puzzles and a search for Truth (literally, metaphorically and philosophically). This novel does not easily fit one or even two genres, but remains accessible by any adult reader. It has elements of a puzzling terrorist thriller in the vein of a Dan Brown novel, it uses speculative fiction in the form of an alternative Earth world, and even considers the impacts of religion (including Christianity and Islam) and how man can abuse these beliefs. One of my protagonists describes a creature inside of him as a feeling of hope with the dread that this hope will somehow be lost if he doesn’t listen to it, if he doesn’t do what is right. Anyone who feels that “creature” inside his or her belly from time to time should read this novel.

What unexpected or surprising thing did you learn during the process of writing and publishing?

The continual evolution of the publishing market has made it both easier (through self-publishing) and harder (through traditional publishing) for a first-time author to be published. I have been told that something like 4,000 books are published each day in the U.S. This overabundance makes it very difficult to get even high quality work noticed by agents, publishers, and readers.

If you could, what advice would you give to your past self before embarking on this journey?

Start with something simpler within a single genre, because it will be easier to sell as a first-time author.

How many people would you ideally like to reach with your books?

Ideally? Millions. Realistically? Considerably fewer.

What has been the biggest challenge and frustration during the process to date?

The Light of Our Yesterdays has received many very good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and it even won the 2019 Wisconsin Author Project Award from Biblioboard and the Wisconsin Library Consortium, which recognized the novel as the best self-published fiction by a Wisconsin author in 2019. Nevertheless, I would like to see the novel gain some traction in sales so that more readers can experience it.

What’s your biggest strengths when it comes to book a) writing, b) publishing and c) marketing?

a) Writing: I’ll just quote the Midwest Book Review: “A deftly crafted, multilayered, complexly plotted saga of a novel by an author with a genuine flair for originality and a distinctive, reader engaging, narrative storytelling style….” I think my characters are also believable and willing to question themselves and the world around them, hopefully helping readers do the same.

b) Publishing: I formed a publishing company, Odium Odi Press LLC. “Odium Odi” is Latin for “I hate hatred.” I have worked through editing, cover selection, formatting, and other publishing details meticulously so that the final novel has a professional quality to it.

c) Marketing: Not much. I hired a marketing firm, but I still feel like this is not a part of the business that suits me well. While I can write excellent copy, knowing how to make a book sell still mystifies me. With my legal experience, I also perform quite well at speeches, book readings and signings. My best marketing involves retail sales – one on one with a potential reader. Unfortunately, this is obviously not an efficient method of sales.

What’s your biggest weakness when it comes to book a) writing, b) publishing and c) marketing?

a) Writing: I am unwilling to write novels that lack significant meaning beneath the story. This means writing takes longer and the reader has to invest a bit more thought into reading my novels.

b) Publishing: As a self-publisher, it is virtually impossible to place a book on the shelves of a Barnes & Noble or other large chain bookstores. I would like to use traditional publishing just to make that a greater possibility.

c) Marketing: Figuring out how to get people to take notice of a great self-published book on a mass, wholesale basis.

When do you think you will write your next book?

I have begun working on my next novel already. I hope to finish it within a year or so. I may eventually write a sequel to The Light of Our Yesterdays as well. I have several excellent ideas already for other novels that I hope to get to someday.

Are you self published or did you use a hybrid publisher, or a traditional publisher?

Self-published by my own publishing company, Odium Odi Press LLC.