Celina Author Phillip Lacy has released the newest installment of his adventure series known as the The Calder Chronicles, drawing inspiration from his hometown.
A truck driver by day, Lacy said he decided to publish his collection of thrillers and comedies this year to generate additional income. Lacy said he began writing stories in high school during the late 1980s after watching low-budget horror movies with his family.
“We’d sit and laugh and just have a good time watching them, and I got to thinking one day and I thought, well, I can write something better than that,” Lacy said. “So I sat down and wrote a horror or a thriller. And that was my first one; I do not have it published yet or anything. But being a truck driver and owning a truck, it’s been bad times here lately. So I sold my truck and now I’m back to being a company driver. And I thought, well, maybe I should dust those stories off and publish them and hopefully get some more income coming in. So that’s what I did.”
Working multiple jobs to make ends meet, Lacy uses artificial intelligence instead of more traditional editing services after quotes for professional services came back at $3,300 per book. Lacy said the first installment of The Calder Chronicles follows a 15-year-old boy attempting to become an Eagle Scout who must save fellow competitors from dangerous characters during a wilderness competition.
“I’m making a little bit of money,” Lacy said. “It’s just really hard getting the name out, you know, getting the books in front of people. I’m advertising as much as I can and promoting as much as I can on the internet. But yeah, it’s—that’s the difficult part.
Even as he struggles with the business side of being a storyteller, Lacy said he finds value in his creative process. While he does not consider himself a traditional author or mystical philosopher, Lacy said he still takes pride in his work as a novelist.
“Technology has come a long way, so I actually got AI to help me some with the editing and finishing them up,” Lacy said. “They are my stories and everything, but they have been helped a little bit, you know, with a little bit of AI. So I hope nobody ever tries to put me up for any awards or anything like that because I’m not interested in that, because like I said, I’m not a traditional author.”
As he continues to publish independently, Lacy said he has built up somewhat of a name for himself in his small Tennessee town.
Lacy’s other published works include Hunter Drake: The River’s Edge a thriller about a Navy SEAL on the Cumberland River, and Orange and White Lines, a romantic comedy centered on a University of Tennessee football player. Lacy said he also released The Dead Air, which features a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent searching for her missing mother in Celina.
“He’s a Navy SEAL on leave there fishing on the lake—on the river down there, Cumberland River near Celina,” Lacy said. “And a diplomat on an airplane crashes, or a government official, and he’s hurt and his detail there is also hurt and he has to save them pretty much.”
Lacy said he began releasing the books at the end of March and is currently managing the marketing and distribution while working his driving routes.
Lacy plans to continue the Calder Chronicles series by following the main character through his future career at the University of Tennessee and his eventual military service.
The newest installment of The Calder Chronicles: Scouts Trial is available in e-book and paperback form on Amazon.