NEXT CHAPTER AUTHOR

Dan Blacharski

Dan Blacharski is a writer whose work explores memory, identity, and the ways history echoes through personal lives. After a long career writing for business and industry, he turned his focus to fiction, drawing on a lifelong interest in European history, travel, and family storytelling. His novels often move between past and present, blending romance, moral reckoning, and a sense of place shaped by lived experience. The Music of Time is his debut novel.

IN THE AUTHOR’S WORDS

Author interview

Interview submitted 28 February 2026.

What inspired you to start writing?

I remember writing stories as early as grade school, when my love of Mad Magazine inspired me to write short stories satirizing my teachers. Some of those same teachers also introduced me to great works of literature, while encouraging me to keep developing my love of story-telling. That early mix of humor, curiosity, and encouragement stayed with me and never really went away.

Who are some of your favorite authors and books?

Salman Rushdie, "Victory City"
Milan Kundera, "Life is Elsewhere"
Haruki Murakami, "The City and its Uncertain Walls"
Han Kang, "The Vegetarian"
Stephen King, "Never Flinch"

What would you like to tell readers who have just discovered your books, but haven't read one yet?

Welcome to my imagination. From the time-travel romance of “The Music of Time,” to the noir underworld of “Bangkok Courier,” I’m pleased to share these stories with you. They draw on places I’ve visited and lived in, including Kraków, Poland, and Bangkok, Thailand. They explore themes I’ve long found fascinating, including Eastern mysticism, reincarnation, time travel, and some of the darkest moments in world history.

Who is the favorite character you created, and how did they come into being?

I have a particular fondness for Roman, the protagonist in “The Music of Time.” Much of my work in fiction draws from lived experience -- travel, memory, dreams, and even nightmares. Roman is very much his own character, but anyone who knows me will recognize fragments of my own life reflected in him, including his parasomnia and visions of a past life.

What are your future plans as a writer?

Stories and themes that have lived in my head since childhood are finally ready to see the light of day. In the years ahead, I plan to continue developing fiction inspired my somewhat checkered family tree – populated by accused witches, Prohibition-era bootleggers, radicals swept up in the country’s Red scare, war heroes, and assorted horse thieves and other ne’er-do-wells. These stories, grounded in history but shaped by imagination, are ones I’ve been waiting a lifetime to tell.