Colin Cheney - Writer-in-Residence

We've come to a new fortnight (people still use fortnight, right?) and with it a new writer-in-residence to join us here at Thought Balloons.

First, let me bid farewell to Liam Lachance.  It was a pleasure to have you aboard and we hope to see you around again someday.  And secondly, let me wish a warm welcome to Colin Cheney.

I recently took a writing course through Andy Schmidt's Comics Experience, and it was nice to take some time to focus on the basics of comic writing and consider the hows and whys of the medium.  It never hurts to get your craft game on, but the other part of the course that I thoroughly enjoyed was getting to know my fellow classmates.

There were plenty of talented writers, some who were wet around the ears and others who had been hustling for a good while.  It was a pleasure to get to know them and to throw thoughts and feedback their way on the comics they were writing - something that we're all about here at Thought Balloons.

Of all those scripts I read during the course, Colin's was one that jumped out at me.  From the beginning, his story idea seemed ambitious.  It had a young family struggling to deal with their new home in a foreign land, their own interpersonal conflict, and some fantastic elements sprinkled in for good measure.  It looked overwhelming, but I was amazed and impressed to see him tame and reign the story in, while maintaining all those original elements.

I figured he would be a good fit as our next Writer-in-Residence, and he graciously agreed.  I look forward to seeing what he'll come up with these next two weeks.

And for your reading pleasure, here's a bit more biographical info on Colin:

Colin Cheney is a poet and writer who lives in Bangkok, Thailand, with his wife and two kids. His book, HERE BE MONSTERS, was published in 2010 by the University of Georgia Press, and his poems show up every now and again in print and online magazines. Recently, he recorded some poems for a great little online project, FROM THE FISHOUSE. A lifelong comics fan, he’s been collaborating on a couple of comics with friends in Bangkok and elsewhere—and hopes to have them out in the world in the next year or so. Occasionally, very occasionally, he has been getting thoughts about comics up on his blog.