{"id":3719,"date":"2023-05-08T21:31:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T01:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=3719"},"modified":"2023-05-08T21:31:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T01:31:03","slug":"turning-pages-with-andrew-hartley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2023\/05\/08\/turning-pages-with-andrew-hartley\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Pages with Andrew Hartley<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Last Friday I attended a retirement luncheon for my friend and colleague Andrew James Hartley.\u00a0 Andrew has served as the Robinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies at UNC Charlotte since 2005, but he is now retiring from his university position.\u00a0 Although he still loves Shakespeare\u2019s plays, Andrew\u2019s current plan is to focus on his own creative-writing endeavors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A true renaissance man, Andrew achieved success as a bestselling novelist at the same time that he pursued his academic career as a Shakespearean scholar.  While he uses his full name when writing scholarly books, he usually writes as A.J. Hartley when he is publishing novels.  Given the fact that Andrew is about to become a full-time novelist, now is a fitting time to take a look back at the creative side of Andrew\u2019s writing career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew published his first novel, The Mask of Atreus, <\/em>in 2006, one year after he arrived in Charlotte.\u00a0 The Mask of Atreus <\/em>is an archaeological thriller that revolves around an ancient and highly sought-after artifact that goes missing from an Atlanta museum.\u00a0 This novel received excellent reviews, and it launched Andrew\u2019s career as a thriller writer.\u00a0 He soon published several other thrillers, including On the Fifth Day <\/em>(2007) and What Time Devours<\/em> (2009).\u00a0 At this early stage in his career, Andrew\u2019s publisher billed him as a thriller writer, but Andrew soon broke this mold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, Andrew published Act of Will<\/em>, a young adult fantasy novel.  This novel proved to be the first of many YA and middle-grades fantasy novels, including Will Power <\/em>(2010), Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact <\/em>(2011), Darwen Arkwright and the Insidious Bleck <\/em>(2012), Darwen Arkwright and the School of Shadows<\/em> (2013), Steeplejack <\/em>(2016), Firebrand <\/em>(2017), Guardian<\/em> (2018), Cold Bath Street <\/em>(2018) and Impervious <\/em>(2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew has also written historical fiction for adults, including two novels based on Shakespeare plays.  He and David Hewson co-wrote Macbeth, a Novel<\/em> (2010) and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, a Novel <\/em>(2014).  Andrew also collaborated with Tom DeLonge on two historical thrillers:  Sekret Machines: Chasing Shadows<\/em> (2016) and Sekret Machines: A Fire Within <\/em>(2020). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about Andrew and his many novels, please click on the following link:  https:\/\/ajhartley.net<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given Andrew\u2019s propensity to jump genres and break molds, I am not sure what sort of books he will write in the future.  I do know, however, that he has a new mythological fantasy in the works titled Hideki Smith, Demon Queller.  <\/em>I can\u2019t wait to read it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will miss running into Andrew on the UNC Charlotte campus, but I am glad that he intends to continue living in Charlotte. Andrew lived in many other places before he moved to Charlotte.  He grew up in England, taught English in Japan, earned his graduate degrees from Boston University, and launched his academic career at the University of West Georgia.   However, he started his career as a published novelist after he moved to Charlotte, and I think it is appropriate that he will pursue his career as a full-time novelist while living in Storied Charlotte. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday I attended a retirement luncheon for my friend and colleague Andrew James Hartley.\u00a0 Andrew has served as the Robinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies at UNC Charlotte since 2005, but he is now retiring from his university position.\u00a0 Although he still loves Shakespeare\u2019s plays, Andrew\u2019s current plan is to focus on his own creative-writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3721,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions\/3721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}