At first JT was just a bunch of little ideas inspired by an incident that happened in my youth. I'd always been a science nut, I have a degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, so I began attaching little tidbits of science to some of the ideas. My wife Marisa encouraged me to keep going and ten months later I finished the first draft.

A lot about The Softwire comes from my own experiences growing up. No, I never travelled on a seed-ship to Orbis but I did feel like I was a slave working in my parents ceramic factory as a teenager. In the summer I would slug 50lbs+ molds around while standing in a room with kilns firing at 1400 degrees. It wasn't fun and at the time I really resented my parents for it. I felt used and not in control of what I wanted. Probably like a lot of other kids my age then but hey, what did I know, I was fourteen.