About YA Fantasy Author DL Blackburne, his Office Pool Series, & New Release, Sons of the Severnn
As an artist, indie author, and filmmaker, DL Blackburne is definitely an author you want to follow. After the recent release of his newest fantasy book, Sons of the Severnn, we sat down to discuss the inspiration behind his latest novel, his YA series Office Pool, and the filmmaking process behind the book-to-film adaptation of his trilogy. To watch our full author interview to hear all about DL Blackburne's books and upcoming projects, check out the video below!
Watch the full author interview here
About DL Blackburne
When DL Blackburne isn't writing, he goes by Rory Moorer, often either creating art or spending time with his family. This Conneticut-based author loves traveling and has explored most of the United States using the changes in scenery to fuel his creativity.
Blackburne's first passion was art and illustrations. In our interview, he explained how from an early age he would copy illustrations from children's books that he would read, practicing and honing his skill. As his love for art grew and he carefully studied and perfected his work throughout his teen and young adult years, Blackburne was able to start his career as a graphic designer and artist, later becoming a multi-award-winning professional in his craft.
Learn more about this author/artist on his website: https://www.rorydlmoorer.com/
About the Office Pool Trilogy
While art was Blackburne's first love, he became curious about diving into writing. After a time of studying this new craft and bringing a fanciful story about highlighters and pens to life, Blackburne published his YA debut novel Office Pool: Orientation at the end of 2019.
Here's a little more of what it's about: "Office Pool is a coming-of-age story of an underachieving ink pen named Arthur "Arty" Bickerson. His unique journey is chronicled as he navigates the ups and downs of "The Office" and its complexities. Arty experiences new success, love, peer jealousy, classism, high expectations, and self-doubt.
Office Pool is a fictional world with many layers. With humans set as the backdrop, these common everyday writing utensils deal with universally relatable issues and themes."
After Blackburne published Office Pool: Orientation and received great feedback from readers, he began working on book 2, Office Pool II: Extraction, which he published in August 2020.
Here's a quick synopsis: "The Office Pool II Extraction sequel picks up right where we left Arty and company in the first book Office Pool Orientation.
Now past the introductory phase of the office penciltics in this small world, young Arty and his pals find themselves suddenly called upon to rescue Stanley. As they set off on this search and rescue mission as to the whereabouts of their beloved community mentor Stan Sharply. It is later discovered that a very large group of previously abducted utensils thought to be long dried out, at the hands of the dreaded under-lord King Glitter Smear, are found alive.
With an already near-impossible mission of locating and extracting Stanley, the plan quickly escalates into a larger-scale plot to extract a long-written-off community. Once in the dark foreign abode of the lower desktop, the young utensils quickly find out surprising things about each other, their own past, their growing present difficulties, and the fate of their very near future...with a surprising twist of course."
Then, in 2022, DL Blackburne was finally able to complete the series with the third and final book, Office Pool III: Culmination, available on Blurb and Amazon.
Want to learn more? "In the final installment in the Office Pool Series, Culmination, both Arty, Claire, and the entire gang are almost home-free in their efforts to unite all the desktops in the office once in for all. However they all must first collectively work together and unitedly face the biggest fight in their lives. This approaching threat is brought to them via betrayal, by one of the members in their group, tipping off a formidable new enemy on the horizon, looking to extinguish the young group and restructure the entire office. Just when Arty and Company think they are on the cusp of achieving office-wide harmony. A new enemy emerges from the upper floors looking to make cuts and phase them all out in a final showdown."
Since the beginning of this series, DL Blackburne had a vision for adapting his trilogy into a film, especially since Office Pool: Orientation reads a lot like a script. In our interview, Blackburne explained how when he writes, he often sees his characters through a movie-like lens in his mind. He wanted to see his series come to life, and since he's an artist himself, he was ready to embark on the movie-making process to make his dream a reality.
Office Pool becomes an award-winning book-to-film adaptation
After a lot of hard work, thoughtful illustrations and character development, and a huge collaboration with Anideos Animation Studios and Live City Films, Office Pool, the film, was created and is now in the film festival circuit. The short film has won many awards from Indie Short Fest like the ones pictured here.
Below are also a few of the digital designs made by Blackburne himself. In our interview, he recalled how neat it was to work with the animators to make his illustrations into moving characters on the screen. The filmmaking process was long and extensive, but seeing Arty and his friends on the big screen for the first time made it all worth it to this dedicated indie author and filmmaker.
To follow along with the upcoming release and distribution of Office Pool's film and learn more about the books and movie, visit https://www.theofficepoolseries.com/ and https://www.moorerbrosfilms.com/
About Blackburne's latest release and fantasy novel Sons of the Severnn
Since Blackburne was able to wrap a bow on the Office Pool trilogy, finally completing the series, he was able to start working on a different and long-awaited project. Throughout the course of writing Office Pool, Blackburne had an idea for a fantasy book, inspired by his love for the medieval time period, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings.
Over the course of last year, Blaackburne worked carefully to develop an entertaining and dynamic storyline with epic character and world-building. In our interview, Blackburne reminisced on how fun this project was to work on, exploring the fantasy genre for the first time. Along with creating this unique and glorious world with words, Blackburne has a number of character art that he designed in order to promote his book on Instagram. These beautifully drawn pieces showcase characters, places, and scenes as we dive into the Severnn Realm.
In April of 2023, DL Blackburne self-published his first fantasy book Sons of the Severnn: The Flower, Feather & the Flame.
Interested in buying Sons of the Severnn: The Flower, Feather & the Flame? Check it out on Blurb and Amazon. Here's a little bit more about the story:
"Sons of the Severnn is a detailed recalling of Princess Winn Eccelsson's life, and her sisters living their lives under the ruse of being born sons.
This ruse was established by her father, King Thaddeus Eccelsson and was put into place as a stabilizer to prevent an unsanctioned challenge or run on the crown threw a process called "clean fealty", by other prominent Royal Houses in the Severnn Realm.
The King and his inner circle imposed an elaborate list of secrecy methods including strict rules regarding reference to his children called "The Sons of the Severnn" that was implemented to maintain power & peace, as well as the protection of his family.
This is seen by the other Royal Houses as more global corruption by the Eccelsson Monarchy, similar to the present King's grandfather and former tyrannical ruler, Andelphinus Eccelsson. The ruse is eventually discovered and the Severnn Kingdom quickly devolves into a global frenzy of feudalistic fighting for power."
Check out this exclusive character art by DL Blackburne!
What's next for DL Blackburne?
After a small writing break, Blackburne will begin working on book 2 of Sons of the Severnn. He has great plans for the series and can't wait to give his readers more books and content! To keep up with his upcoming releases and more character art, follow DL Blackburne on social media!
Want to follow along with DL Blackburne’s author and film journey? Check out his profiles on Instagram:
Hope you enjoyed your stay at The Poet's Corner. Thanks for watching and come back next week for another author interview! For daily writing and author content, follow me @thepoetscorner_ on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube :))
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