(THE PICKET)—Alan Gibson—local author, adjunct professor of both French and Spanish at Shepherd University and owner of Ridgefield Farm and Orchard in Harpers Ferry—added another activity to his repertoire when his first novel, The Dead of Winter, was published in October.
The Dead of Winter tells the tale of four friends who visit the farm to stay at the bed and breakfast there. In true horror story fashion, they choose the wrong weekend to make their stay, and they spend the next 24 hours being unwillingly involved in a terrifying tradition.
“I never pretended that I could write anything brilliant. I didn’t really want to do that. I wanted to write a really great piece of fiction with a fun plot. My dream was to be in an airport and see my books lined up on a rack somewhere, didn’t matter what the title was. That’s kind of always been a fantasy,” Gibson said.
The setting for The Dead of Winter, Alan Gibson’s debut novel, was modeled after Ridgefield Farm and Orchard in Harpers Ferry, which he owns.
While Gibson said that his first major career venture—writing for advertising—seemed to come naturally to him, writing in the form of a novel was a bit of a challenge.
“This was my first novel, and frankly, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be,” Gibson said. “Finishing is hard for me. I have so many ideas, and my life has gone in so many different directions; I just lose interest quickly. It’s one of my weaknesses but I also think it’s one of my strengths.”
Although Gibson said that he always knew he wanted to write a novel, the plotline for the story hatched when he bought the farm that is now known as Ridgefield Farm and Orchard in Harpers Ferry.
“I was flying to California a few years ago and I thought, I’ve got to figure out a way to make this farm pay for itself. I came up with the idea very quickly of doing a horror movie set at the farm. The whole concept of this story is that it’s something that could happen, and I find those creepier and scarier than other things where there’s some mysterious being in the basement; this is real. By the time I landed in LA, I had the outline of a plot,” Gibson said.
Gibson spoke with a friend he was meeting in California about a business deal and mentioned the idea of a horror film set at the farm. The friend was immediately on board and promised to fund the project for him. He spent the next several months traveling back and forth to Los Angeles to discuss the inner workings of the film budget.
While Gibson was anticipating the filming of his horror film to begin soon, he hit a major roadblock when his first source of funding could no longer work on the project. Gibson said he was devastated because of all the time, effort and money he had already poured into the project, but he was not going to be deterred.
A year later, the friend who cut the funding the first time said he could take on the project again, and the process of beginning to make the film was set into motion for a second time. And, for a second time, the source of funding disappeared. At that point, Gibson had another idea.
Gibson sits at the desk in his home study where he wrote his recently released novel, The Dead of Winter.
He said he knew he could write a book without funding, so he furiously began writing his novel The Dead of Winter, which was published by Xlibris.
He said he has been most influenced in his life by writers such as Jules Verne, Charles Dickens and W. Somerset Maugham.
After growing up in Rockford, Ill., graduating with a bachelor of arts in French and a minor in Spanish from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., and a masters in linguistics with a French concentration from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and briefly working as a French teacher at the Landon School for Boys near D.C., Gibson jumped into the world of advertising when he landed a job as a copy writer for Britches of Georgetown—an upscale men’s clothing store in D.C.
Currently, Gibson is an adjunct professor at Shepherd while working on two more books to complete The Dead of Winter series—a prequel and a sequel.
Gibson will be featured at various book signings next month including ones at the University Club in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 2, Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown on Dec. 3 and Washington & Lee University on Dec. 10.