Now approaching a senior age of 71, I have very fond memories of my good Father Nathan Wilkins and great Mother Ruth Anstead Wilkins. They worked hard and raised six children consisting of four sisters and two sons of which I am the next to the youngest of all six. I was born on my mothers 37th birthday on Christmas Eve in the year 1950. 

My love of astronomy began at an early age. I have a vivid memory of my early grade school teacher named Miss Dean taking me by the hand one day and leading me to my hometown library and asking me what I liked to read about. I meekly told her as a child that I liked the Moon and Planets. Oh she replied. Those books are located in the basement of our library. There in that basement is where my knowledge and love of astronomy began.

I am forever grateful to that wonderful teacher  Miss Dean from my third grade grammar school. She opened my eyes and influenced my boyhood wonder of it all. At age 10, I was a newspaper boy that walked the streets and neighborhoods of my home town and sold newspapers to enhance the jingle of my tattered overhaul pockets of the day. Before two way radios were installed in taxicabs, I also was paid a dollar a day to answer the corner taxi stands telephone that hung outside on a store wall downtown near where I use to stand and sell newspapers. At age 12 I did that job after school Monday through Friday and all day Saturday until sunset. While the two taxies were out on a call, I would answer their wall phone and scribble down the address that needed a taxi and submit it when a taxi returned from a job. In those days, a dollar meant a lot and went quite far.

I also have a keen interest in musical instruments that I inherited from my fathers retired days of being involved in early radio broadcast. To this day, knowledge of music gives me a satisfaction that can never be taken away and will always give me a sense of accomplishment. Due to my interest in astronomy, In the eighth grade I was chosen by my teachers to be sent to an experimental school entitled the North Carolina Advancement School that was located a hundred miles away from my hometown in Winston Salem N.C. Two students from every school in my state were chosen to participate. The college type dorm rooms housed two students each and there were a total of 18 rooms in each of the nine separate dormitory house’s. I was in house nine and Mr. Tippet was our house counselor. That special school is where I began learning to express myself in writing. There was a teacher named Mr. Kaplin that gave students a one or two word noun assignment to write about each day. Our objective was to turn the words into a story line to be submitted each following day as homework assignments. Mr. Kaplin also taught us students to imagine how we would count numbers in different bases other than base 10. For instance, if we were alien entities from another planet that had only three fingers on each of our two hands. How would numbers be counted? The count was demonstrated by counting, 1-2-3-4-5-10-11-12-13-14-15-20 etc. That advancement school from childhood will always occupy a fond memory of my youth. It taught me enhanced imagination for which I am forever grateful and still today prepares me to think deeper and differently.

In those days when astronauts were beginning to be launched into space, TV sets were rolled into the classrooms so that students could watch the historical launches of the day. I watched them all intensely. Astronauts are my heroes. In my early adulthood I watched every mission especially the Moon landings and the construction of the International Space Station. After graduating high school came the biological urge of marriage and I entering into the workforce. I married my childhood sweetheart and fathered a daughter and son and I moved away from my small hometown and went to work at a loading dock of a trucking company in Richmond VA. I worked the loading docks for several years and when I turned 21, I was trained to drive semi trucks and from that point on I spent much of my adult life hauling merchandise and traveling the highways of the USA in order to earn a living. Through all of those past years and experiences, I never lost the yearn to some day write novels.

I did have a bad experience with a publishing company that published my first novel in 2006 and for 15 years I didn’t write anymore. During those 15 years I became quite efficient at repairing desktop and laptop computers. My personal writing experience now is to get away from everything while writing including TV and the internet. I have two special writing environments that I use in my writing. My first novel was written on a six month camping expedition along side a stream in the North Carolina mountains. I set daily goals of writing to accomplish a certain amount of words. Solitude is my friend.

One day in 2020, a super nice lady from a company named Omnibook in New York City, called me on the phone and wanted to republish my first novel entitle The Ancient Nemesis that had been idle for years. It was a good story but the cover created by the first  publisher was no good. Omnibook did an excellent job on republishing the Ancient Nemesis. I was grateful and was encouraged to fulfill my childhood dreams of continuing to write four more science fiction novels. Those novels are listed here and are available on this and other sites.

1- The Ancient Nemesis

2- ESTHREP =’s Extra Solar Technological Human Robotic Exploration Probe

3- EURALS =’s Earth Underground Rotational Assisted Launch System

4- ROV =’s Revival Of Venus.

Soon to be included 

5 =’s ERE or Electric Ringworld Earth

I, Eric Wilkins am forever grateful for the day that Ci Monzant called me from Omnibook and the great cover and editing work that was created by Gian Tan at the Omnibook Publishing Company in New York City. I personally recommend them highly if you should decide to write a novel of your own.

In conclusion, no matter your genre of interest, Writing a book or novel is a part of your mind that lives forever even when you leave this fantastic planet Earth. You definitely can’t take a red copper cent with you when your soul goes on to explore. BUT !!! you can personally leave your knowledge and imaginative thoughts behind to be read by others forever. My personal satisfaction is to donate as much as I can to ST. Jude Children’s Hospital. These children deserve a cancer free life. My bucket list grows  by each Earth rotation.

Forever Yours in Wordsmith.

Best Regards

Eric Wilkins

Henderson, NC

spaceman186000mps@yahoo.com