Cascade Library Interview with Autumn Skies

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with Autumn Skies
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	Autumn Skies
Date(s):	February 24, 2002
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2002, Autumn Skies was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

To be perfectly honest, [The Sentinel] didn't make much of an impression on me when it first came out. I recall seeing a little bit of the pilot, but got distracted and switched channels to something else. It wasn't until much later I happened to stumble across some TS fanfic. I immediately got hooked on the writing and decided to find out what it was about the show that inspired such wonderful stories. I finally began watching TS in earnest during its fourth season.

I had always kept the notion of writing stories on the back burner, that is until I started reading TS fanfic. The friendship theme between Jim and Blair appealed to me so much, I began to fiddle around with a few ideas. However it took me several months and dozens of tries to come up with a story I felt confident enough to post.

One of my favorite photos is the downshot of the three actors, Bruce, Richard and Garett sitting around the Cascade PD logo. To me, that triumvirate says it all. Yes, the show is about Jim and his sentinel abilities, but Simon is also an integral part of it. He's Jim's superior and friend, and also a semi-father figure to Blair. Without his support, Jim and Blair couldn't continue as a team.

[The first Sentinel fic I read] was a story by Brenda Antrim. On the gen side, it was either Martha's Ordeal or Lois Balzer's Promises in the Dark. I read them around the same time and both stories blew me away.

I figure the adage, "less is more" is good rule of thumb for modern architecture and smarm. Actually, I've never analyzed how I go about doing it. It just comes out that way. It's probably tied into my own taste level, which tends toward understatement.

[The story I'm most proud of is] probably Sojourner, which started out as a writing experiment. I wanted to see if I could make the main character recognizable to the reader, without mentioning his name once. Since this story also has a melancholy theme and is told through the view of an OMC, I wasn't sure how well it would go over, if at all. It took me a while to gather up enough nerve to post it, but I'm glad I did. The reactions to it have been both surprising and heartening.... I'd once read somewhere that loss of career affects men to a much greater degree than women, because most men identify themselves through their work. Considering the years of effort Blair had put into his studies and the university, giving it all up had to be extraordinarily painful. Coupled with the pressures of starting over at the police academy, it seemed natural to me he would want to leave Cascade behind for a while.

I used the viewpoint of a bookseller, Nick Briosi, to reinforce Blair's distance from everything he had once held dear -- his career, his friends, his reputation and home. But no matter how far Blair travels, or what he does, he still retains an inner essence that can't be blighted by the events of TSbyBS. His intelligence, curiosity and desire to help still shine through.

Even though he has turned his back on his old life and Jim, I couldn't see Jim turning his back on Blair. In my view, Jim continues to search for his guide, friend and partner because he's come to realize a simple fact. He's not whole without Blair. The two of them are strongest together, rather than apart.