Where did the idea of Death’s Academy come form?
So I had finished my first book Crossovers, which is twice
as long as Death’s Academy and had a darker, more serious, tone overall. I am
by nature, somewhat of a goofball and dork with an imagination that leans
towards the bizarre side.
For example when I was in my early twenties I made an
extremely independent movie called Funk Down. Funk Down is the epic story of a
guy, he actually was a disco king coming back to his hometown after a long
journey to find that the forces of soft rock had overtaken his city, shut down
the disco dens, and sent his world into black chaos. Truly a deep, thoughtful
piece of work.
Anyhow, I had finished Crossovers and I wanted to tap into
my weirdness again, so I started to brainstorm on ideas. An idea about man
eating venus flytraps survived for about a day or two, but thankfully I came to
my senses and then I started playing around with another idea about a guy who
you can hire to destroy special occasions… which may be a book I actually do in
the future, but at that moment it wasn’t speaking to me. So I was despondent, I
locked myself into my room, wailed into my pillow for at least a good seven or
eight seconds and thought my world had ended.
So in this state of the utmost melodramatic tragedy my
twelve year old son came up to me and showed me a story that he had written.
I’ll be honest I don’t remember all the particulars, but I do remember that
there was a cat and then a Grim reaper who was assigned to kill cats. As soon
as I read that, a tsunami of ideas came to me. Well what if there were reapers
for all types of animals and humans and you had to go to school to learn how to
be a grim reaper. What if there entire culture and class structure was
determined by the type of reaper you were, what would be the ultimate
assignments to have. Then the idea of having their arch nemesis be the guardian
angels jumped on board, so it started this snowball effect that I have to
credit all to my son. 
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