Background & Outlook

INDIE AUTHOR JOSEPH RIDEN writes and self-publishes fiction narrative and nonfiction books, essays, memoirs and articles in native, US English. He also offers freelance writing and several author services, including editing, writer coaching, assisted book writing, independent self-publishing, and alpha and beta readings and critiques for other authors.

Joseph also blogs and helps new and established authors write and publish their own works. He has edited published novels written by others including a men’s adventure novel and a romantic memoir.

He completed a double major in Literature and Psychology with high honors in the well-regarded English Department at SUNY, Buffalo. At UB, Joseph rubbed shoulders with contemporary literary figures who lived, wrote, and published their works. His studies stimulated a sustained interest in prose styles native to the United States.

After military service and university, Joseph resumed his established career in mechanical and industrial design and continued writing. Inevitably, he became an author and lead design engineer. Along the way, he completed the Institute for Writers’ course, “Breaking into Print.” He created a trail of inventions and technical content as a design engineer as he also wrote articles, essays, blog posts, and books and stories as a freelance writer.

Friends and clients describe Joseph as born curious and fascinated with big questions, great ideas, historical and cultural trends, and critical unknowns. “It’s tantalizing to be alive at the dawn of the third millennium, CE,” he has said. “The time is right to wonder about our universe. Accelerating social and environmental changes stimulate us to re-invent in all areas of human experience. Our collective history calls upon us to tease out valuable lessons and put them into practice.”

Joseph learned about life’s dynamism from varied perspectives. Beyond writing and design, he has filled diverse roles, including surrogate father, coastal mariner, lumberjack, sport fisherman, teacher, soldier, husband, scholar, expatriate, bohemian student, seminarian, meditator, natural health practitioner, entrepreneur, business consultant, and live-off-the-land outdoorsman. He ventured abroad in South Korea and Costa Rica but he always came home to the USA.

As his design engineering career completed, writing became Joseph’s full-time concentration. Now a lifetime of learning seeds Joseph’s writings and shapes his author’s viewpoint and outlook. He believes in humanity’s ability to prosper yet transcend limitations and further evolve as individuals and as a species.

A deepening humanism tempers Joseph’s mind with a more encompassing consciousness. “We may reach beyond entertainment for useful realizations through textual narratives. We can learn from our reading and speculate about dynamics that drive people, our cultures, and history itself. To make progress, we can imagine new and better possibilities and choose among desirable outcomes that entice us forward. Insight coupled with right action can guide the courses of our lives, our societies, and even world history.”

Joseph believes we can evolve beyond dependence on our various entrenched myths of magical creation and by so doing, someday direct human evolution, given our growing mastery of genetics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, ecology, and robotics:

“Human self-insight becomes either an asset or a curse depending on how well we apply it. We’re accepting increasing ambiguity and moving beyond unknowns rather than explaining things away in myths to calm our insecurities. We’re asking, ‘Where did we come from?’ and ‘Where are we going?’ in ways that don’t beg the questions or posit some magical, imaginary, prejudiced, or supernatural answer. We’re moving beyond the need to create yet another myth to fill the sometimes frightening void of incomplete knowledge that has always left us so insecure.

“The future is bright when we view it by the light of wisdom and kindness.”

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Visit Joseph Riden's Amazon Author Page HERE.

Find career details on his LinkedIn Profile.

Request a resumé or writing samples on the Contact page.