Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
John Michael Layne’s love of creative writing and literature developed when he was a student at Pocahontas County High School. He was in the ESSH program – English, Social Studies and Humanities – which was taught by Sharon Vance and Delores Seielstad.
“Ever since high school, I’ve been in love with books,” Layne said. “I think it’s as close to real magic as you can get. People who can weave an actual story out of thin air and present that.
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer, there was never time until now,” he added.
Layne graduated from PCHS in 1992 and went on to earn a regent Bachelor of Arts degree at West Virginia University and he is currently pursuing an MBA at WVU. He also works remotely for WVU medicine from his home in Clarksburg.
While it may seem that Layne has a lot on his shoulders – attending school, working and helping his wife, Lori, a PCHS 1998 grad, raise their two sons, Braxton, 12, and Spencer, 13, but Layne somehow found time to write his first novel.
“Seasons of Ash,” is the first in a trilogy in the post-Apocalyptic thriller genre. A portion of the story takes place in Green Bank, where the two protagonists retreat to when there is a volcanic eruption that covers the world in ash.
“The disaster is based on Mount Tamobra,” Layne said. “Mount Tambora [in Indonesia] erupted once in 1815 and it created what is called the year without summer, so all over the world, crops failed, climate shifted, it was freezing and snowing in June.
“It sent so much ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere that all over the world, terrible things happened,” he continued. “Nobody knew what it was because it was 1815. They just thought bad things were happening.”
The novel takes that event and amps it up to 11, stranding the lead, Matt Anderson, in Nevada when his plane makes an emergency landing. His wife, Laura, is in Charleston and makes a retreat to Green Bank, where the couple always planned to go if something terrible happened.
“I always thought, if something bad happened in the world, if something catastrophic happened and systems failed, and the power grid went down, I have always had in my mind that Green Bank is the perfect location to kind of bug out and go home to because there’s a lot of qualities to it,” Layne said.
“It’s secluded anyway,” he continued. “It’s ringed by mountains; it’s hard to get to. If something like this happened, a lot of other places – bigger cities and towns – would be subject to riots, they’d be subject to mobs and food shortages, so I’ve always had in my mind that Green Bank would be the perfect place to be if you wanted to survive.”
If writing is Layne’s main passion, survival skills would be a close second. Layne was inspired not only by his life in a rural town such as Green Bank, but also by his dad, who grew up during the Great Depression. He learned that you have to be prepared for anything.
Layne wrote a small, non-fiction book, “By Endurance We Conquer,” which is about the survival mindset. He teaches classes about the mindset and will be doing so at the Kentucky Sustainable Living Festival in Bowling Green, Kentucky, July 17-19.
“The sustainable living and prepper community, the survivor’s community, is a very unique community of people who are intentionally trying to build community,” he said. “The stories in these books help them do that.”
Layne isn’t taking any breaks when it comes to writing. He has almost finished the second book in the series, “Republic of Ash,” which is set to be published in the fall.
As for returning to his hometown for visits, Layne doesn’t wait for a disaster to occur. He and his family make regular treks back home to visit family, including his parents who are in their 90s and live in the house he grew up in, right there in Green Bank.
“We try to get back as often as we can,” he said.
“Seasons of Ash” is available from Amazon and on Layne’s website johnmichaellayne.com
