About The Author

Jon Timmons lives in South Carolina in a house on a lake and spends most of his time reading, writing, and dreaming up worlds. He teaches Freshmen and Sophomores how to write at The University of South Carolina and is working on a non-fiction thesis (about the disappearances in the Galapagos Islands in the 30’s) for his MFA degree.

Jon attended the Savannah College of Art and Design and graduated with a BFA in Sequential art, and worked as a Comic Book Creator for Marvel Comics as well as Wildstorm/DC Comics.

Edge of an Endless Earth (final title) will be Jon’s first finished novel to be published.

He’s also spent some time working (but mostly reading) as a bus boy, PA on movie sets, and as graveyard shift security guard.

About Edge of Town

Imagine waking up one morning to find an ancient stone wall covered in ivy stretching across your backyard. Imagine that day as others in your Appalachian town wake up to go to work, standing on their back porches and gaping out at the twisted boughs of unfamiliar trees clawing into the mists clinging to the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. What would happen next?

Buckeye, Tennessee is split in half, right down Main Street. Friends and neighbors able to wave to each other just one night ago, are now cut-off by unknown miles of lakes, rivers, mountains, and plains. The Sheriff’s department, followed soon by State Police, and the National Guard, occupy the little town--which was already split by the affluent new residents flocking to the trendy Appalachian college nearby and the locals being forced out by hipster gentrification. Tensions rise as lights and sounds are observed from within the mysterious kingdom at night.

Then a convoy of Marines go in, but never come back out. And as the Edge of Town creeps ever farther in, something does come out.

Something not of this world.

Edge of Town is a dark fantasy, southern thriller, exploring the unrest of towns split by gentrification and the clash of modernity and tradition. It speaks to the paranoia of a world leaving certain peoples and places behind, and that all-too-familiar feeling of waking up to a place you no longer recognize.

*UPDATE

I have begun adding content to Edge of Town (working title). I plan to slowly add stuff here a little like a serial until I reach a good sample amount. I have started with an Epigraph from Ron Rash that served as inspiration for this story, followed by a bit of flavor text, and now some background on the fictional town of Buckeye, Tennessee. Chapter 1 will follow.

* I changed the name of my fictional town from Crockett, Tennessee to Buckeye. This was done because I wanted no confusion between the name of my fictional town and that of Crockett, Va nor Crockett County, Tennessee.

This fictional town is located East of Knoxville, near Happy Valley in Blount County, located near the Tennessee/North Carolina border in the Smoky Mountains.

INSPIRATION:

Buckeye is based in part on Oak Ridge, Tennessee (which is just outside of Knoxville) and Boone and Asheville, NC. Oak Ridge was established in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project, and grew up around workers sent to work at the Uranium-Separating Facility, which at the time was the largest building in the world. Oak Ridge’s nicknames include the Atomic City, the Secret City, and the City Behind the Fence--all of which sparked my imagination for The Edge of Town. I take the "college town" aspect from Boone, and the "modern hipster influx" from theAshville.

Oak Ridge Y-12 Facility

Boone Appalachian State University

Asheville Residents

*Update (5/28/2016)

CHARACTERS

Kelly Rybak - From Buckeye, in his late twenties. Kelly works odds and ends, mostly at his aunt’s apartment building. He has a complex relationship with being Appalachian, being from Buckeye, in that his parents proved to be a couple of negative stereotypes from the region. They were non-existent for most of teenage life, addicted and unemployed and he has little contact with them now. Because of this he desperately tries not to be associated with that lifestyle, and mixes with the students at Smoky Mountain State and disguises himself almost as one of them.

At the outset of Edge of Town, Kelly is participating in a volunteer ground search for the latest missing woman, one of many that disappear in the Appalachians, believed to have been abducted. That woman is his aunt, Catherine Dunleavy.

Catherine Dunleavy - From Buckeye, early thirties. She is the aunt of Kelly Rybak, but has been more like a sister due to their closeness in age, and the fact that she and her family took care of Kelly when his parents checked out, which was often. She has an opposite story in a way from Kelly. From the same town, but her parents did well in Real Estate, left her a building to start her career, and retired to Lake Norman, near Charlotte, North Carolina. She makes her living presenting an "authentic" Buckeye living experience to outsiders and inhabits that persona.

At the outset of Edge of Town, Catherine is missing, taken by someone and held hostage in one of those rusted, ancient, moonshine shacks every thinks of when they hear Appalachia. Or is she? This experience causes her to rethink the positive opinions about Buckeye’s traditions on which she has built her career and persona.

Emma Davis and Ben Markakis - From Atlanta, dating. Ben is in his mid twenties, and moved with Emma (the same age) to Buckeye, where she attends Smoky Mountain State as a graduate student studying photography. She comes from money, he does not. Both have come to Buckeye to connect to some sort of "authentic" South they did not find back in Atlanta that will accept them. Ben falls in love with the Appalachian culture, and attempts to blend in with the locals, while Emma doubles down on her quirky, hipster originality. They live in Catherine Dunleavy’s apartment complex and are friends with Kelly Rybak.

At the outset of Edge of Town, the two are in a rocky place in their relationship, Emma unhappy with Ben’s seemingly inauthentic transformation to what he feels is a "true Appalachian", Ben unhappy with her "ironic and pretentious" mentality about Buckeye and its people. Ben is also assisting in the volunteer ground search for Catherine with Emma nowhere to be found...

*Update (5/24/2016)

Heads up for everyone following this project: I have decided, after listening to great advice from one of my creative partners, to adjust the title of Edge of Town, to something a bit more unique and evocative of the fantastic nature of the story. Edge of Town was always a working title anyway, though it seems strange to see the new title attached to this project. In any case the final title I am using here will be Edge of an Endless Earth. See not so different. I will be updating this page as soon as I post the finalize cover I had commissioned.

Which bears an announcement. Illustrator Andy Hemming was kind enough to design a wonderful cover for Edge of an Endless Earth. I believe he normally works as a magazine illustrator, but is one hell of a cover designer and was a joy to work with. (Reasonably priced too for all you budget writers). His website is www.andyhemming.com with all his contact information and portfolio if anyone is interested in a quick and talented cover artist.

I can’t wait--here is the gorgeous cover Andy designed for me. I will be officially adding it to the project as soon as the first chapter goes live in the next few days.

Which brings me to my last point: Edge of an Endless Earth has grown so much in the past month

-- from a Fantastical story about a displaced kingdom, to a hybrid of wonder and gritty Southern drama,

to a very personal story about growing up in the South and feeling apart from the rest of the world yet some how still not feeling comfortable with your neighbors.

About looking back at the your home and realizing there is nothing you recognize there any more--and possibly never was.

I am uploading the first chapter in the next few days, followed by the second shortly after. Hopefully you all, and even more readers, will see something that connects with them and share this project with friends. Please follow along as I update new chapters in leading up to opening Edge of an Endless Earth to be funded down the road.

(My background is in illustration for Marvel/Dc--expect VIP funding rewards like sketches/illustrations/comic pages of your favorite stories/characters/books --even your own characters)