Inside the Book:
Title: Dark Transmissions
Author: Davila LeBlanc
Release Date: March 1, 2016
Publisher: Harper Voyager Impulse
Genre: Sci-fi/Space Opera
Format: Ebook/Paperback
Marooned and at the mercy of the station’s malicious artificial intelligence, OMEX, David and Jessie rig an emergency transmission to broadcast into the darkness, desperately hoping someone is still alive to hear it...
Navigating the fringes of explored space in the Covenant Patrol vessel the Jinxed Thirteenth, Captain Morwyn Soltaine picks up a distress signal from a space station. But it’s broadcasting in Ancient Humanity, a language that has been extinct for several millennia. Even more incredible: there are two survivors on board. Morwyn’s rag-tag crew of reformed criminals mount a rescue op, unaware of the dangerous foe awaiting them. As the past and future collide, a routine mission becomes a deadly game of wits.
From the stage to screen to page
By
Davila LeBlanc
I think I can safely say that the road to getting my first novel published was quite the roundabout one. What is incredibly strange about this is that I’ve always known I would be a storyteller. One of my earliest childhood memories is of me writing my own versions of GhostBusters, Tron, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Trek The Next Generation. I would write myself into these universes that captured my imagination and, spoiler alert, it was often the Dav character who would save the day.
During high-school, I could usually be found sitting next to my locker, writing in a notebook. If I’m being 100% honest Dark Transmissions was not my first novel. The Wizard’s Quest, a one hundred and eighty page book written on sheet paper during my econ class was. I still have it locked away, a humbling reminder of my horrible mis-uses of “there”, “their”, “were and “where”. And has anyone ever really heard of a “where-wolf”? Maybe once I’m done with the Jinxed Thirteenth’s adventures that will be a world I’ll explore.
Throughout most of College, writing would remain nothing more than a passion and hobby for me. I was working hard on trying to break into print journalism but found myself drawn to the world of theatre and film. It wasn’t long before I was performing sketch comedy in the Fringe Festivals and comedy clubs of Montreal. When time came for me to go to university I was unable to get into Journalism or Theatre and wound up settling for English Literature. I was devastated by the rejection, now with hindsight’s benefit, it was one of the best things that ever happened.
First off, there was so much to read and discover and I can honestly say that my time in university was incredibly useful for that. While studying literature and still doing the comedy circuits of Montreal I was struggling with my application for the creative writing program when a fellow writer friend of mine asked me why I wanted to get into the program in the first place.
“So that I can become a writer.” I said.
He replied to me. “There is no class in the world that will make you become a writer. If you want to write, just write.”
And those words had an effect of narrowing my focus. Suddenly I had direction. I left university and I dedicated myself to writing and working on any project I could. I would write comedy shows, edit scripts for plays, anything to practice my craft. And one fateful day I was asked by a friend of mine, Phil Ivanusic, to help him with an animated film he was working on. Through this first project Phil and I wound up working on several other non-paying gigs until he finally asked me to aid him on his student grad film The League of Evil. The final project was blast and we wound up wishing that we could do more with it. And we when with the help of a killer designer by the name of Peter Ricq, we crafted a pitch document which got the League of Super Evil picked up and produced for children’s television.
The next four to five years are a blur of moving to Vancouver, learning the ropes of television production, script deadlines galore and cutting my teeth in the industry of screen-writing for children’s animation. Those days were important for me. I dedicated myself to learning the ins and outs of good storytelling, and I was lucky to have incredibly generous industry veterans to guide me in those formative years.
As production on League Of Super Evil was wrapping itself up, I moved back to Montreal and kept on working as a freelance animation writer, living the dream of making a living off of my craft. And in 2013 it dawned on me that while this was a great thing to have accomplished, it had never been my ultimate goal. I still needed to complete my first novel.
It was not for lack of trying at the time I was working on a detective thriller titled: Sprawl (and who knows maybe I’ll re-visit that world as well). I had conceived the original story during my days in Vancouver but the book had been blocked for at least a year. Feeling frustrated at this I decided to try something new altogether. Write a story set in an entirely different universe and finish it. Then I would return to Sprawl.
That’s right, Dark Transmissions, my first novel, was just supposed to unblock me so that I could go back and write another novel. And yet as I completed the first chapter a part of me, the same part that knows when I’m in love with someone, knew that Dark Transmissions would not only be the first book I completed, but the first book I published as well.
And now as I prepare to edit my second book and conceive the third, I can’t help but be really humbled and stand in awe by how the fates cleverly conspired to not only get me where I both wanted to be but where I needed to be as well.
In love, light and laughter. Be well.
By
Davila LeBlanc
I think I can safely say that the road to getting my first novel published was quite the roundabout one. What is incredibly strange about this is that I’ve always known I would be a storyteller. One of my earliest childhood memories is of me writing my own versions of GhostBusters, Tron, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Trek The Next Generation. I would write myself into these universes that captured my imagination and, spoiler alert, it was often the Dav character who would save the day.
During high-school, I could usually be found sitting next to my locker, writing in a notebook. If I’m being 100% honest Dark Transmissions was not my first novel. The Wizard’s Quest, a one hundred and eighty page book written on sheet paper during my econ class was. I still have it locked away, a humbling reminder of my horrible mis-uses of “there”, “their”, “were and “where”. And has anyone ever really heard of a “where-wolf”? Maybe once I’m done with the Jinxed Thirteenth’s adventures that will be a world I’ll explore.
Throughout most of College, writing would remain nothing more than a passion and hobby for me. I was working hard on trying to break into print journalism but found myself drawn to the world of theatre and film. It wasn’t long before I was performing sketch comedy in the Fringe Festivals and comedy clubs of Montreal. When time came for me to go to university I was unable to get into Journalism or Theatre and wound up settling for English Literature. I was devastated by the rejection, now with hindsight’s benefit, it was one of the best things that ever happened.
First off, there was so much to read and discover and I can honestly say that my time in university was incredibly useful for that. While studying literature and still doing the comedy circuits of Montreal I was struggling with my application for the creative writing program when a fellow writer friend of mine asked me why I wanted to get into the program in the first place.
“So that I can become a writer.” I said.
He replied to me. “There is no class in the world that will make you become a writer. If you want to write, just write.”
And those words had an effect of narrowing my focus. Suddenly I had direction. I left university and I dedicated myself to writing and working on any project I could. I would write comedy shows, edit scripts for plays, anything to practice my craft. And one fateful day I was asked by a friend of mine, Phil Ivanusic, to help him with an animated film he was working on. Through this first project Phil and I wound up working on several other non-paying gigs until he finally asked me to aid him on his student grad film The League of Evil. The final project was blast and we wound up wishing that we could do more with it. And we when with the help of a killer designer by the name of Peter Ricq, we crafted a pitch document which got the League of Super Evil picked up and produced for children’s television.
The next four to five years are a blur of moving to Vancouver, learning the ropes of television production, script deadlines galore and cutting my teeth in the industry of screen-writing for children’s animation. Those days were important for me. I dedicated myself to learning the ins and outs of good storytelling, and I was lucky to have incredibly generous industry veterans to guide me in those formative years.
As production on League Of Super Evil was wrapping itself up, I moved back to Montreal and kept on working as a freelance animation writer, living the dream of making a living off of my craft. And in 2013 it dawned on me that while this was a great thing to have accomplished, it had never been my ultimate goal. I still needed to complete my first novel.
It was not for lack of trying at the time I was working on a detective thriller titled: Sprawl (and who knows maybe I’ll re-visit that world as well). I had conceived the original story during my days in Vancouver but the book had been blocked for at least a year. Feeling frustrated at this I decided to try something new altogether. Write a story set in an entirely different universe and finish it. Then I would return to Sprawl.
That’s right, Dark Transmissions, my first novel, was just supposed to unblock me so that I could go back and write another novel. And yet as I completed the first chapter a part of me, the same part that knows when I’m in love with someone, knew that Dark Transmissions would not only be the first book I completed, but the first book I published as well.
And now as I prepare to edit my second book and conceive the third, I can’t help but be really humbled and stand in awe by how the fates cleverly conspired to not only get me where I both wanted to be but where I needed to be as well.
In love, light and laughter. Be well.
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