Ishmael's Wrath is an action packed debut from native Oklahoma author Steven Shane Pate II. He was kind enough to answers some questions about his new novel, reading habits, and the publishing process.

How have your personal experiences influenced the direction of your writing?

Well, I am really blessed to have many mentors in my life who have published books. Coincidentally, many of them are members of the Masonic fraternity, and it is this relationship that helped point me in the direction of writing this novel Ishmael's Wrath that has many religious and Masonic themes.

Also, I'm a young guy, who like many other young people, has spent a lot of time trying to understand what it is I'm meant to do with my life. I really like writing about people who are on this same quest. In a way, it is like therapy I suppose because I understand more about myself as the characters I write about learn about who they are.

What were some of your favorite books growing up?

I really enjoyed reading Stephen King growing up — The Stand, The Shining, and Pet Semetary. I also have devoured every Chuck Pahlaniuk book that he has written. As far as fiction goes, I also hold the Dickens classic Great Expectations close to my heart. Really though, I don't read a great amount of fiction. I mostly read things like the ideas of Plato, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and a guy named Albert Pike.

Do you feel like they have influenced your writing style?

Albert Pike really inspired me. Pike wrote a book called Morals and Dogma, which he believed would be the first academic work on comparative religion. Unfortunately someone in Germany beat him to the chase but his ideas were adopted by the Masonic Fraternity as an explanatory piece for the ethics and values taught in their fraternity. Pike was a brilliant writer, and everything he produced was nothing short of an eloquent symphony of words that were typical of writers from the Victorian period. His writings can be hard for many to understand but they are really impressive.

What are you reading at the moment?

Currently I am reading The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. I just finished the final Harry Potter this weekend.

What was your inspiration for Ishmael's Wrath?

Narcolepsy had an immense role, believe it or not. My last semester in college I had this professor who taught a course on Emergency Management. He was really having trouble staying awake one class period while he was lecturing on how government agencies are working to prevent terrorism, but the terrorist groups keep finding new ways to elude them. At some point he lost his battle to remain lucid and we couldn't seem to wake him. While some of my classmates were shouting at him, the idea struck me…wouldn't it suck if terrorists invented a time machine to assassinate rival religious founders in history? At that same time, my cousin, who the main character is named after, was sent to fight in Iraq. His dealings with the war also gave me a lot of inspiration.