Author’s Bio: Mark R. Clifford is a proud fourth-generation San Franciscan, and the second-born in an Irish Catholic family of seven, making him a self-proclaimed expert in the pseudoscience of birth order characteristics. Mark served in the Marine infantry for ten years and as a Police Officer for over a quarter-century. TYPHOON COAST is about what still haunts him.
In the Marines, he rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. Mark received Special Operations training while attached to the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa and was operating in the Philippines in 1991 during the historic eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
His law enforcement career was equally eclectic. He rose to the sergeant's rank and served in a myriad of assignments to include SWAT and undercover narcotics.
Mark still calls the San Francisco Bay Area home. He and his wife have been married for almost thirty years and have raised three beautiful children. He has written for the San Jose Mercury, Contra Costa Times, San Leandro Times, and read his works at the famous Cody’s Books in Berkeley.
Deliah Lawrence: What inspired you to write your book?
Mark R.
Clifford: Sadly, at twenty-six, I was wealthy beyond imagination.
The Philippines is a nation of 7,641 islands and just as many spectacles. June 1991, I was a Marine stationed on Luzon, the chain’s largest island, where fate had ushered me to a front-row seat to an epic adventure. While enduring the fatigue of jungle patrol, I’d befriended a Filipino selling machetes. He’d disclosed to me the suspected whereabouts of a treasure trove rumored to be near the top of the now-infamous Mount Pinatubo.
There is much history about this legendary Golden Lily Treasure, as well as intrigue behind its origin. My new cohort and I soon took a jarring jeepney ride, to board a slow-sinking banca boat that ferried us back to the boonies, where we footslogged toward Pinatubo’s Vesuvius splendor, to unearth our riches in Luzon’s lawless wilderness.
Dearest reader, let us agree that a treasure hunt is rousing. I don’t need to bother you with the intricate details of how the machete man read a series of etchings in rocks, or how we avoided a bottle as if it was a landmine because the Japanese filled Saki bottles with deadly gas to protect the cemented entrances from looters. But we’d found the sealed cave! I could smell the perfume of my soul within…that undeniable fragrance of one’s hopes and dreams. The bigger problem was staying alive to claim it. However, in the end, it didn’t matter. A few days later I was back on filthy jungle patrol. I tasted the unmistakable lure of treasure that had seeped into my nose and caked to the back of my tongue, as I watched Pinatubo’s cataclysmic eruption blow 500 feet of its summit twenty-two miles into the wild blue yonder.
TYPHOON COAST was inspired by the second-largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century, which blew my life of opulence to oblivion. I am writing two more books based upon the adventures of the story’s diverse cast of characters.
DL: How do you handle writer’s block?
MRC: Try
telling a story about being buried alive in quaking cataclysmic volcanic
eruption while a typhoon raged outside. An actual apocalypse that blackened out
the sun. Writing is not a discipline for me. Writing is something I serve.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” I will never claim that Typhoon Coast is an autobiography. On the other hand, every single detail has a pure life nexus. Writers must write from a place they know. Those places have a voice. Listen.
DL: Describe your writing process?
MRC: I
write from where I am in life. I went from being an altar boy and an Eagle
Scout to being a Marine and a cop. I craft at my computer in the family room
every morning at 6:30. I reach for my hot cup of black coffee in a military
veteran mug that my kids gave me for Christmas years ago. The computer screen
glows in a dark room. My dog sleeps on the couch behind me. I like quiet;
however, I don’t need it. Technically, I was not a true feral child raised by
wolves, but I’m Irish-Catholic, and I was the second oldest in a family of
seven children---I got peace like I got stigmata.
The world is still quiet at 6:30—a treat to myself. I rarely sleep, I only dream. And I remember my dreams from the night before. I still dream about the jungle and the streets. The concerns of the day will begin in a couple of hours. At 0630 the story I serve weaves itself into the rules of my craft. I am its servant.
DL: What do you think makes a good story?
MRC: Making
magic real.
Typhoon Coast is a rollicking ride through 1980s San Francisco, through the vibrant eyes of a boy who loses his mother, and then his innocence. In the jungles of the Philippines, in the 1990s, that boy becomes a man, falls in love, and begins a lifelong quest for a mythical treasure trove hidden in the canopy. Magical realism and romanticism merge with the hard, cold reality of a Marine’s life to reveal a glimpse into how the imagination conspires to keep us dreaming.
DL: Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?
MRC: I
rarely read for pleasure today. I write. I do read voraciously to see how
others have written.
I have bookshelves uniformly fitted with tattered books that profoundly influenced my inner writer. Drum roll…. The best book I ever read (and recommend to fellow artists) …. Ready for the big reveal?
Answer: The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator, in a series of glimpses into the central character's mind and soul, Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist.
BUT! Don’t run out and buy it. Buy Typhoon Coast.
DL: What are the keys to success in marketing your book(s)?
MRC: Create your brand! Your book is only a portion of your individual design. Readers want to know the author.
I love what I can write. However, I found that people were intrigued by my life. I sign my books “Life is a treasure hunt; seek and you will find.” I truly believe this. I strongly encourage people to seek their adventure. Travel is not the adventure. Service to others is.
Sharing my work with the world was always part of the plan. As the writing process ended, the marketing began. I quickly realized that the publishing industry was changing, and I had to make my luck.
DL: What tips would you give to aspiring writers?
MRC: Create
a world that your reader will understand. And do this early.
I learned something important about storytelling as a young cop. I’d lose my audience at body number two in a multiple homicide story. It wasn’t that I couldn’t tell a dramatic tale, it was that the subject matter was just too remote for a reasonable person to grasp.
As a result, I create composite settings and situations to meaningful to a large audience. They are not looking for me. I’m looking for them.
DL: What do you like to do when you are not writing?
MRC: Yoga.
Meditation. Exercise!
We are all warriors against time. At a young age I realized that my only connection with my youth is my fitness level. I love running hills. The steeper the better---A metaphor for life!
DL: Can you share an excerpt from Typhoon Coast?
MRC:
Sure thing! Here you go:
Book blurb:
Ten-year-old
Trent McShane watches in horror as his beautiful young mother is swept away
from California’s Typhoon Coast into the unforgiving wild blue Pacific, never
to be seen again. Lost and bewildered, Trent falls under the spell of class
clown Eddie Thompson, who has a wanderlust for treasure hunts—in particular,
the infamous World War II Golden Lily Treasure, buried on the other side of the
ocean, deep in the wild green Philippine jungle.
Together, Trent and Eddie follow childhood’s illusions of grandeur through San Francisco, then become men in the vast Philippine mountains. Mount Pinatubo explodes with apocalyptic fury, but does it take the Golden Lily Treasure with it? Eddie and Trent are not alone in the hunt. The trillions in treasure could afford the US government incredible power in international affairs and bankroll the nation’s black operations. It’s all fair game.
Excerpt:
Trent was the
King of the Upright Beasts in Mount Pinatubo’s upside-down world. The
inhabitants of the jungle canopy watched the three fools who were marching
toward danger.
There is a wish for a San Juliana in every boy’s heart. Here was the shrine that kept Emerald Eyes young in Trent’s. The eruption had swept her barrio away. Holy Sepulcher Church’s double front doors used to stand where Trent paused with Miss Lily and Bambino. God’s house had collapsed under the ash. The almighty’s roof and walls had crumbled, and His doors had been stolen. Trent moved to a dark corner of the ruins. Miss Lily sat in the aisle.
Trent leaned against a tree wrapped in green vine. It had grown up through the floor of the confessional booth. The three fools sat for an hour, to let the jungle grow used to their presence. This was where he had learned how to cross the border of social order, so he could walk upon the third world as a welcomed guest. Here was where Filipinas used to gather to gossip and giggle at Americans sneaking to their barrio in shiny bouncing jeepneys. Now a hundred eyes floated down upon the crushed wooden pews to consider the message behind the upright beasts’ silence.
Miss Lily turned toward Bambino, who squatted squinting at the steeple.
“’What you looking at, boy?” she said as she wiped sweat from her brow with a sweep of her hand.
“The Beast of the Sacobia, maybe?” Bambino whispered.
DL: What new projects are you currently working on?
MRC: Stay
tuned for book two in the Typhoon Coast series. Barbary Coast: Fly from Evil to
be released in 2021!
Step right up to see The Typhoon Coast! The world’s most monstrous triangle. Fix your eyes on the apex is in the middle of the South China Sea, in an area known as the Devil’s Sea, off the Philippine coast.
Follow the legs over 7,000 miles to California’s coastline. The north vertex is San Francisco. The south vertex is Hearst Castle, San Simeon.
Typhoons in the Devil’s Sea sculpt the remains of glass fishing floats beneath its fathoms---churning red, brown, blue, purple, and green shards into North American Sea Glass Association’s gems that tumble onto the Bean Hollow Beach like dreams in summer surf.
DL: Where can readers find out more about you and purchase your book(s)?
MRC: They
can find out more here:
- Website: https://typhooncoast.com/
- Amazon Author Page: Mark R. Clifford
- Facebook: Mark Clifford
- Instagram: @typhooncoast
- Blog: Invite me to your blog!
- Book Buy Links: Amazon, selected book stores, and typhooncoast.com
DL: It’s been a pleasure having you here with us today. I know my readers will enjoy getting to know you and your work.
MRC: Thank you!
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