Local Author Finds Inspiration Around Wesley Chapel

Mark Loren and his wife Susan have a strong bond with the characters in their October Fall series now available on Amazon.(Photo: Courtesy of Mark Loren)

As Mark Loren shops for groceries at the Publix on S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel near his Meadow Pointe home, his mind imagines a battle scene taking place around the grocery store. Key locations across Pasco County, like Publix, are common settings in his post-apocalyptic present-day world book series, October Fall.

The idea came to the first-time author three years ago, after reading survival and prep books. The world he created is based on true locations, real people and key moments in his life. 

“It’s a thriller and an apocalypse and a love story,” Loren said. “And it all takes place in Pasco County.”

The story follows Jake as he uses his military training and knowledge of prepping from books to survive in a world after an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. Without a power grid, chaos ensues and Jake must protect himself and his family. 

October Fall, the first book in the series, was released April 2, and has received 412 reviews, 83 percent of which were 4- or 5-stars.

The second book, November Feud, did even better. Of the 512 reviews, 92 percent were 4- and 5-stars.

The third book, December Battles, is expected to be released this month.

Loren took inspiration from his past to establish the life of his main character Jake, who, like Loren, is a retired Major in the U.S. Army who used to drive a tank. While Jake is a reflection of Loren, his wife Susan and children Jazlyn and Cole also are leading characters with similar personalities to their real-life selves. As Loren’s wife and editor, Susan says the events in the story may not be real but the connections between the characters are very real, indeed.

“Their relationship with us and their relationship with each other, those things are real,” Susan said. “That’s what makes the books real.”

Loren would travel to key locations in his series, marking places on a self-made map. When reading the survivalist novel Going Home by A. American, he was inspired to take a drive through Pasco County, where the book’s main character traveled. Taking inspiration from the series, Loren made October Fall an interactive story for readers to travel to the same places he did.  

“There is a little bridge on Morris Bridge Road that goes over Cypress Creek and, in the story, they stop there and do something,” Loren said. “And then, there’s a house that gets burned down by a good friend in the first book and we drive by and see the burned-down house.”

October Fall is the first in a series of books centered around a character who is trying to protect his family in a post-apocalyptic Wesley Chapel. 

Calling himself a discovery writer, Loren would keep the plot and themes in his head before transferring them onto paper, unlike his publisher, Boyd Craven, Jr., who would outline the novels. Loren currently has five books written with seven total planned out in his head. He says it took him six months to finish writing book one and three months to complete each book in the series, which enabled them to be published as rapid releases only a month apart.

Loren is a big fan of J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, especially when the main characters break up into smaller missions before uniting to complete the overall goal. Taking inspiration from Tolkien, Loren says he saw the vision he wanted to create for the October Fall series.

Loren met Craven online through the Facebook group DD12 The Post Apoc Army of Readers. After Loren told him he had written four books, Craven decided to edit and publish them through his publishing company Raventhorne Books. 

“Writing the book is only half the battle, possibly less than half the battle,” Craven says. “Refining the book and getting it in front of the right audience at the right time and presenting it the right way is the other half of the game.”

Loren says the series begins to wrap-up in book 5, which is half written, but books 6 and 7 take the story in a stunning, new direction and even elicited a “Holy Cow” from Craven. 

The story is forever evolving. Loren says he would often find himself getting out of bed after having a good idea for his novel. Not wanting to forget a certain theme to incorporate into his stories, he would begin writing down the ideas at night. 

“I was concentrating on one, and going back and tying things up or making changes in another,” Loren says. 

Although October Fall is Loren’s first published work, he has been writing stories for years. When his wife was deployed during Operation Desert Storm, he would write to her of his last few days, accumulating more than 80 pages of writing and 13 chapters. He says their love story started more than 30 years ago.

To purchase October Fall or November Feud, visit Amazon.com/OCTOBER-FALL-October-Fall-Book-ebook/dp/B091NDFJBN.

College Students Host ‘Zoomhall’ For New Tampa Study

New Tampa is at its best when it comes together to fight for important additions to the community, like the 2017 budget battle that led to an expansion of the New Tampa Rec Center.

Three Master of Social Work (MSW) students at Southeastern University in Lakeland hosted a New Tampa Town Hall meeting on Zoom, hoping to discuss the community’s potential for growth.

The final verdict? To grow, you need to connect.

During the 40-minute Zoom call on May 4, presenters Darlene Starrette, Kyrin Backlund and Melissa Rice (a 20-year resident of New Tampa and the only member of her group that lives here) discussed the opportunities that New Tampa could partake in to increase community engagement. In addition, they held an open forum to hear from the 17 attendees present, including District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera.

“While New Tampa can feel like a disconnected place, residents have voices that matter and we would like to hear your voices,” Starrette said.  

The Zoom call was part of a final project in the course “Generalist Practice with Groups, Communities and Organizations.” The three students completed their first year in the Master’s program and are currently beginning their summer internships. Next year, the students will start their final clinical year to earn their MSW degrees.

Rice was the one who suggested focusing on New Tampa for their final project. She described herself not as a social butterfly, but as someone who was interested in hearing from the people of her community. 

“New Tampa just isn’t talked about much at all,” Rice said. “Living here, I was very interested in other people’s perceptions of the community.”

Luis Viera

One of the main issues discussed during the meeting was the lack of interaction between New Tampa neighborhoods. Viera, who has long argued the same thing, said that New Tampa needed a better collective community identity.

“We see ourselves as Tampa Palms, Hunter’s Green, Richmond Place, Cory Lake Isles, K-Bar Ranch, Grand Hampton, etc. and we don’t see ourselves as New Tampa collectively,” Viera said. 

During the Zoom call, a link was shared to a 42-page community engagement tool kit that covers the demographics of New Tampa, benefits of community engagement and survey results posted on the app Nextdoor. From the responses of 21 residents who took the survey, the lack of social and cultural events in New Tampa was highlighted as a priority. 

“In terms of its cohesiveness and community spirit, it’s not a town — it’s just a zip code,” said Priscilla Stephenson, a Tampa resident who participated in the meeting. 

Rendering of the New Tampa Performing Arts Center.

The New Tampa Performing Arts Center (PAC), which has been 17 years in the making, also was a hot topic during the meeting. The team encouraged the Zoom call participants to email and voice their support for the vote occurring the next day. On May 5, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners approved the construction contract of the PAC.

“In our research, we found that there are a lot of benefits to engaging the community,” Backlund said, “including overall health, sense of belonging and social connectedness.”

Rice talked about how some members of the community wanted better transportation and more affordable housing. From her notes, she recorded that New Tampa residents also wanted to fill some of the open store fronts, build cultural bridges and have more restaurants in the area. 

Although two of the three MSW students aren’t residents of New Tampa, each member has worked towards a common goal of establishing New Tampa’s sense of community. Backlund suggested creating a Facebook page for the New Tampa area to keep the community discussion going. 

While nearby Wesley Chapel has three robust community Facebook pages with nearly 60,000 total combined members, New Tampa’s busiest Facebook page, New Tampa Online Yardsale!, is mostly for selling household items.

“I’m just hoping that this isn’t the end,” Backlund said. “Our goal is to get people on board and start to actually make some significant changes.”

The three MSW students want the residents of New Tampa to take pride in their community and to keep engaging through community events.

“It’s really up to the community to decide that this is a good thing for them and it’s something that they really want to do,” Starrette said.