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Who is Jeffrey Hannan?
In my early 20's I came across a college catalog that offered a lit course entitled "California Writers." At the time I was an East Coast refugee, living in southern California, working on a bad first novel and a few incrementally better stage plays.
All of a sudden there was a label for me - a name for the kind of writer I wanted to be: a California writer. It helped that the definition was wide open: geography aside, what exactly is a California writer? (No big fan of labels, I nevertheless co-opted this one.)
Check out my bio and other writings on http://jeffreyhannan.com.
Embracing chaos
For me, chaos is the underlying structure of the universe. It is randomness overlaid on discernible and, more often than not, indiscernible structures. It is conflict and dichotomy. It's the lives we lead. Especially here in California. Even more so since the advent of the Internet.
References to chaos suffuse the text - subtly, and not. As Geoffrey, the information architect, explains to Hugo in the chapter 'Oh Millennia'...
"Now," Geoffrey professed, "the internet is a strange attractor, Hugo the Hurricane. A strange attractor is a place of return or of focus, a locus shifting in all its facets and dimensions as chaotic systems whirl around it. I myself am a strange attractor: strange in that I don't abide by the standard rules of physics, an attractor in that I attract. Yet I am neither stationary nor random. I am a beacon of stability and persistence and the forces surrounding me can not help but be drawn in by my mathematical appeal." With a flourishing wave of the hand he added, "I meld with the arrow of time."
Lately I've taken to embracing chaos. Gravitate as I do towards order and ease, it's been a challenge. For 25 years I nurtured the notion of the contemplative life of the writer and only recently have I stopped beating my head against the wall trying to achieve it. In my new frame of mind - which my brain is still struggling to wrap its fissures around - balance derives from the mixed bag of doing, while serenity, to paraphrase my Saturday morning cosmic goddess yoga instructor, exists in the quiet space in between one's breaths.
Do I really work in the internet industry?
Yes. My profile is available on LinkedIn.
Not totally unlike Hugo, who went from software to services, I spent the boom years and the downturn contracting in financial services, so I have a very corporate relationship with the internet. Like most people in the industry, I used to work absurd hours at an absurd and unforgiving pace. Sometimes I still do, although I've gotten much better: these days I actively seek to fill my days with more of those moments in between the breaths.
A tea farm in Puna?
Yes, it's true. We've started a tea farm in Puna. (See my bio on the back cover.) Rumor has it I left IT to tend the farm. Unfortunately, that little tidbit isn't true.
My bio
My bio can be found on my author site JeffreyHannan.com, along with other writings (short fiction, an intro to my blog) and my non-fiction CV.
