FALL INTO A FANTASY: ‘My Children from Another World’ is out now and available for purchase.

THOMASVILLE — While many may know Payton Fletcher as a reporter at The Thomasville Times- Enterprise, he is known to another community as “Glasses,” the author of My Children from Another World, which was published on Amazon this past Tuesday.

Fletcher said he originally inspired to write the story after a conversation with a friend.

“I was talking with a friend about some of the shows we had been watching,” he said. “Portal fantasies are the genre this came from. They center around characters going to a different world and have adventures and change the world and defeat the evil encroaching upon the world.”

Fletcher said the conversation eventually led to he and his friend pondering about a dad raising children from another world.

“It was just a really funny conversation,” Fletcher said. “It was all about kids coming from another world, using a slang and talking like an adult, when in reality they are only 5-years old.”

While talking with his friend, Fletcher said he wrote down some notes and ideas from the conversation, but it wasn’t until months later that he really took a good look at the notes.

“I really wanted to write something, so I just began writing a few chapters to see how it went,” he said. “I was just flying by the seat of my pants for a while, creating a world and characters.”

However, Fletcher soon fleshed out an idea and saw a vision for where he wanted to take his novel and the journey the characters would take in the novel’s eventual three-part series.

During the course of a year, Fletcher began posting chapters on Royal Roads.

}“It is effectively an online writing community website with a lot of independent authors, who inspired me to continue on, and who I learned from in a lot of different ways,” Fletcher said.

Posting under the name “Glasses,” Fletcher slowly began to upload chapter by chapter of the first book.

As he began to gain a following, Fletcher caught the eye of a representative from Podium Audio.

“They are not affiliated with Amazon or Audible,” he said. “They are effectively publishers who reach out to independent authors, such as myself on websites like these. They then turn these books into Audiobooks for Audible.”

Originally, Fletcher said he thought the offer was fake.

“It was amazing, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But, when you’re in the online space, it’s always good to a healthy dose of skepticism when someone reaches out to you out of the blue.”

However, after a conversation over Zoom, Fletcher realized this was what he wanted.

Podium Audio offered Fletcher their All Rights, which allows him to develop the book for Audio, Kindle and Amazon paperback.

“I had to add 30,000 words to my book to qualify for that program,” Fletcher said. “I’ve always wanted to be an author. I never thought this would be the route that I took, but I’m certainly not unhappy with it. The Podium Audio people have been amazing.”

Podium Audio is now contacted with Fletcher for a My Children from Another World trilogy, which will follow the father and his children as they grow up.

“It will have three books in the series,” he said. “The first one, which is available on Amazon Audible is Dawn. The second and third book will be Noon and Dusk respectively. Dawn follows them as they are infants and toddlers, while Noon is a 10-year time jump.”

While the book is a portal fantasy, Fletcher said the main character is based upon the truly great paternal influences he has had.

“I’ve had some truly great fathers,” he said. “My dad and great-grandfather have both shown me a lot of strength in their lifetime and they’ve shown me what a father is and what it should be. Even when they made mistakes, they’ve rectified them in a way that was strong and mature.”

Fletcher said while the children were inspired by no one person, it is his work with people from various communities that have played a role in forming all of the characters.

“Being a journalist has been another inspiration for my writing,” he said.

Fletcher said, although he will be busy for the next year, he has no intention of leaving behind reporting.

He said he is thankful for his friends and family and reader’s support, along with Podium Audio, who has taken him on this incredible journey.

“My Children from Another World—Dawn” is out now and available on Amazon.