Airdrie’s Brent Perdue has written five science fiction books, worked on over a dozen feature film scripts, television scripts, and short-film screenplays, and worked as a writer and editor. He’s also an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre.
By day, this husband and father of three daughters works in the world of pensions, benefits and compensation, but by night, he sets aside his charts and graphs and creates worlds that electrify the imagination. Ask him how this journey unfolded, and he’ll tell you a story worthy of a screenplay.
“I was the youngest of six children, so it was easy to get into trouble but also easy to disappear.”
That disappearing involved reading.
“My siblings kidded that if they took my body away from my bed, I would look like a chalk outline murder victim because I had books all around me.”
He started writing fiction in his youth but got lured into theatre in high school.
“I thought, ‘this is for me’. I love the thrill of having done a show.”
At Queen’s University, he studied psychology and took a minor in drama. After a role in MacBeth, he had a moment when he realized something was amiss.
“I thought, ‘acting was fine for high school, but it’s not me’.”
An avid guitar player, he decided to explore music and took a summer off to hitchhike across Canada busking. He was sure music would be his outlet, but one day he had that same feeling again. Music wasn’t for him, either.
“So, another box didn’t get a checkmark. It got an X. Acting, no. Guitar, no. But I came to writing and said, ‘I’m going to give this a shot again’.”
Between his second and third years of university, he wrote a novel.
“It was a piece of garbage, as they usually are,” he says. “But I thought, ’I did it’.”
It was a turning point for Perdue. As a writer, he acts out all the characters in the novel, and as a good literary writer, he is also a lyricist.
“There’s a melody, a cadence, and a rhythm to the writing, and – surprise, surprise – I hadn’t quit those things at all.”
He’s working on his upcoming seven-book series, The Amistar, adding this to his Timeworks Trilogy, stand-alone novels, children’s book, and a collection of short stories, scripts and songs.
“It’s been a long and interesting journey to becoming a published writer.”
