BalloonWorld
About the Author
John Blackmore is an award-winning short story writer, having won both The Writers’ Union of Canada nationwide short story and postcard story competitions. He has also been recognized on the finalist lists for the CBC (Canada’s national broadcaster) short story and creative non-fiction competitions. Early in his writing career, he was fortunate to study with Giller-prize winning author, Elizabeth Hay.
In addition to his short story, mystery, and YA projects, he has been a reporter, speech writer, and editor. He hosts a short story podcast series: Fresh New Shorts featuring thousands of downloads. Check out one of the more popular stories, The Creation Myths.
When not writing, he loves the outdoors, playing complicated board games, and curating artifacts in his tiny writer’s office. It currently features such items as a sextant, trilobite, his favorite books, a jade dragon and like the heroine of BalloonWorld—Freja—a piece of the Berlin wall procured by his two daughters and first readers.
Contact the author: jblackmore.writer@gmail.com
Inspiration for the Book
The book began when a girl with a backpack balloon, pulled through the air by a team of birds, flew past my imagination. She was riding a komatik, or Inuit sled, but gliding on the wind rather than snow.
She was both incredibly free and yet a prisoner.
Freja was defined by opposites. She was fierce and difficult to love yet she longed to love someone else. She knew she didn’t fit in yet wanted desperately to belong. She knew she was smart and brave yet felt she had to always prove it.
Once I recognized Freja, I had to discover her world. I sketched out BalloonWorld—a football-field sized platform that had to float in the air. I began calculating how much the structure, the people, and their objects would weigh. Could big balloons support her? The 60 people in the community weighed about 9000 pounds; the structure and the burners weighed 10,000 pounds, their objects and items weighed 2000 pounds. A balloon of about 500,000 cubic feet would support somewhat more than 7000 pounds. Multiply by three and we have the enough lift to keep them afloat.
But you also see why weight was so important! This precarious nature of balance led to the first scenes, and key characters on BalloonWorld such as the Libra. It also pointed out how important mathematics and science would be to the world that was being created, and to the people who lived in it.
And then it became obvious that was the reason why they were captives.
With Freja and her community as prisoners, it also became apparent that her story, and the story of BalloonWorld, was a discovery of how they were to become free. I had no idea when we began our flight, but little by little, leaning in to Freja, Euler, Thomas, Faraday, Katarina and the others, we found the dangerous hand we would have no choice but to play.
Contact the author: jblackmore.writer@gmail.com
BalloonWorld: Bargeworld 