How did you become a writer?

A little bit by accident. While I was working as an attorney, I set out to write a novel that I felt I needed to write. Not because I was a novelist (I had never written a word of fiction, outside of my legal briefs), but because I had a story I wanted to tell. During the process of fumbling through that first novel, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that writing novels was what I had to do with my life.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

I’ve learned how to write by reading others, and some (but not nearly all) of my favorite authors are: Dennis Lehane, Herman Hesse, Dan Simmons, James Lee Burke, Michael Gruber, Toni Morrison, Charlie Huston, Hemingway, John Fowles, Fitzgerald, Martin Amis.

When and where do you write?

Every morning for as long as my schedule allows, either in my home office or at a coffee shop.

What are you working on now?

The fourth Dominic Grey novel, a new fantasy series, and polishing a stand alone.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write write write, read read read, never write something you’re not passionate about, make sure you’re as original as you can be, voice is everything, go deeper into your story than you ever thought possible -- and then go deeper still.

Layton Green is a mystery-suspense-thriller writer and the author of the Dominic Grey series. In addition to writing, Layton attended law school in New Orleans and was a practicing attorney for the better part of a decade. He has also been an intern for the United Nations, an ESL teacher in Central America, a bartender in London, a seller of cheap knives on the streets of Brixton, a door to door phone book deliverer, and the list goes downhill from there.

He has traveled to more than fifty countries, lived in a number of them, and has a burning desire to see every country, city, beach, moor, castle, cemetery, twisted street and far flung dot on the map. Religion and cults, as well as all things spiritual and supernatural, are a lifelong interest. Roll in fifteen years of Japanese jujitsu training, and the Dominic Grey series was born.

Layton lives with his wife and children in the Atlanta area. Please stop by his website at www.laytongreen.com.