Wayne Du Toit

Wayne Du Toit came to fiction sideways, by way of software, years spent thinking in systems and logic before he ever thought in scenes. His first book, in fact, was about time management, which is about as far from Narnia as a book can get. What never wavered underneath all of it was a lifelong pull toward fantasy.

He started reading to his three boys every night from around the time each turned two, and refused to reach for anything watered down. Narnia came first, then whatever followed it — full books, full sentences, full stakes. He was startled by how much they understood, and more than that, by how much it seemed to sharpen them: working through a hard idea in a story turned out to help them work through hard ideas everywhere else. Somewhere across those nightly chapters, a shared love of story took root in all four of them.

Wayne has always had more story ideas than time for them. But one refused to leave him alone — the kind that kept assembling itself into scenes whether he was working on it or not — until the only way to be rid of it was to write it down, ideally as something he and his boys could read together.

What he didn't expect was how much he'd love the writing itself: handing a character a careful outline and watching them set it aside to tell their own story instead. Being able to create something, even in this small way, has turned out to be one of the real blessings of his life.

I hope you enjoy exploring these worlds as much as I do.