Jack Cullen has served in the military, practiced law, and been a police officer. After some unusual experiences along the way, including an encounter with jackals, he now writes science fiction and fantasy. 

Daily Dragon (DD): Your website says you’ve been chased by a pack of jackals. What led to that, and how did you escape from them? 

Jack Cullen (JC): In 2002, I was stationed in Pakistan while in the army, and the area was overrun with jackals. I was walking back to my tent at night when I realized a pack of jackals was pacing me, and I ran for my tent. They chased after, toying with me. I made it to the tent, grabbed my rifle, racked a round, and popped out, only to find they had vanished.  

DD: You also once woke up in the wrong country. How did you land there, and what tipped you off that you weren’t where you were supposed to be? 

JC: That was during my air force days, when I was stationed in Germany. After a night out in Frankfurt, I woke up in Zurich, Switzerland, with no idea where I was. I slept through a four-hour train ride and had to find my way back to Frankfurt.   

DD: You’ve also floated through the Mayan underworld in an inner tube. Why did you decide to do that, and what was it like? 

JC: That was fun! I was in Belize with friends, and there is a series of caves called Actun Tunichil Muknal that the Mayans believed was the entrance to the underworld of Xibalba. It has altars and artifacts that go back to the pre-Columbian era.  

I went on a guided tour where you float on inner tubes along a river that runs through the cave system.  If you’re ever in Belize, I highly recommend it. Plus, you get the added bonus that if someone ever tells you to go to hell, you can tell them you already tubed it!  

DD: Your website says you had all these experiences “prior to pretending to be a grownup.” Once you decided to adopt this pretense, how did you go about it? 

JC: I’m sure there are plenty of Dragon Con goers that can relate. Most of my professions—military, police, attorney—require you to have a professional demeanor. I “adulted” at work, then went home to enjoy the same things I loved as a kid: Star Wars, comics, D&D, etc.   

DD: You’ve mentioned being in both the army and the air force. How did you happen to join these two different branches of the service, and how long did you serve? 

JC: I enlisted for a four-year stint in the air force right out of high school. I come from a blue-collar family with a history of serving in the military, and I wanted to continue that tradition. The G.I. Bill and the chance to travel the world on Uncle Sam’s dime were also appealing. I wound up in Fire Protection as a firefighter/EMT in a Crash/Fire/Rescue unit. I got out shortly after the end of Operation Desert Storm.  

After 9/11 happened, my department sent me to New York to assist in the rescue efforts. When I returned home, I enlisted in the Army National Guard as a military police officer. We were activated in early 2002 for Operation Enduring Freedom and deployed to a combat zone.  

DD: Why did you decide to go to law school? 

JC: I always toyed with the idea, but I didn’t get serious about it until a police officer friend pursued law school himself. After discussing it with my wife (who had serious reservations), I attended law school while working as a full-time police officer and raising a family. I passed the bar on the first try and became an attorney the same year I made sergeant on the police department.   

DD: When you became an attorney, what did your practice involve? 

JC: After passing the bar, I called up the friend who was also a police officer/lawyer and told him we were going into business together. All he said was, “Okay.” 

Both of us were prior military, so we decided to specialize in veterans’ disability law and social security disability law. I won’t disparage other fields of law, but I slept well at night knowing I represented veterans and little old ladies.   

DD: You’ve also been a police officer. How long did you serve as an officer, and did you have a specialization? 

JC: In one form or another, I was in law enforcement for over 33 years. I spent the last 29 years in a city department, having worked both patrol and investigations. As a detective lieutenant, I oversaw what TV would refer to as a special victims unit. It was both the hardest and most rewarding work I’ve ever done. I spent the last five years working as a captain, which was the rank I retired at this year.  

DD: What were the reading habits that led to your training in the investigation of cults and ritual crimes? 

JC: My reading habits would best be described as eclectic. At the time I attended the academy, I had been reading a lot of true crime. This was during the tail end of the satanic panic of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and we had a class in that particular subject matter. While the guest instructor took it very seriously, the staff and the student officers would best be described as skeptics.  

During the class, he did a slide show of various cult leaders and serial killers and would ask us who they were. As someone who grew up playing D&D during the satanic panic, I couldn’t resist messing with him, and I ran the board on all his questions, watching his eyes get bigger and bigger as I did. 

Shortly after graduation, I found myself being ordered to a set of training schools where I became certified as a Ritualistic Crimes Scene Investigator, and as an Occult Crimes Investigator. I never needed that particular knowledge base as a police officer, but it’s come in very handy as an author.   

DD: You now write a series called Recollections of a Rune Knight. Please tell us about it. 

JC: It’s an urban fantasy series with humorous elements about a city in Massachusetts where magic users and various supernatural creatures hide out in between Ages of Magic. The main character, Mike Brennan, is a runesmith. While he has no magical abilities of his own, he can forge magical items and uses them as a police officer. Unlike the typical lone wolf character, Mike is married with two kids. His wife is an extremely powerful witch and has had to bail him out on more than a few occasions.    

The first book in the series, Runes of Steel, was my first novel, and I wanted to explore some of the things I saw in NY at Ground Zero. When it happened, I saw this huge outpouring of support for the victims and the city. I found myself wondering how the city would have fared without outside support.  

That became the premise of the book. When a magical terrorist attack cripples the city and devastates the police department. Mike has to come out of retirement to fight the terrorists, putting together a ragtag group that includes a magical expert who can’t cast magic, an apprentice druid not old enough to shave, and an ancient warrior reincarnated as a little girl.  

DD: You also write the Lock Ferguson vs. the Aliens series. What inspired that series, and what is it about? 

JC: I wrote the first book, Lock’s Galactic Mess, as a sort of a brain cleanser after researching some very nasty criminal cases. It’s a sci-fi comedy that I never really planned on publishing. I was just having fun with it, but it became one of those books where the characters practically wrote themselves. I submitted it to a publisher on a whim, and to my surprise, they offered me a three-book deal.  

While growing up in a small New Hampshire town, Loughlin Ferguson was abducted by aliens. He made the mistake of telling his cousin and became the laughingstock of the town. Fast-forward to the present, and middle-aged Lock is working as a janitor and spending his free time indulging in old-school geekery.  

When the alien who abducted him returns, Lock and his friends have to use their collective knowledge of all things nerdy to prevent the alien from retrieving the most dangerous weapon in the galaxy, Lock Ferguson himself.  

The third book, Lock’s Celestial Blunder, will be out later this year.      

DD: According to your website, you also write horror comedy, which is an unusual term. How did you come up with it, and how does that come into the writing mix? 

JC: I’m still trying to figure that one out. I wrote Runes of Steel as an urban fantasy with comedic elements, yet somehow it wound up number one in Amazon’s Horror Comedy List. Then, on a completely unrelated note, I got invited/press-ganged to join the New England Horror Writers. So somehow, I became a horror writer who doesn’t write horror. 

If you do like horror, I highly recommend the Wicked anthology series that the New England Horror Writers puts out. One of their board members, Trisha J. Wooldridge, is a Dragon Con regular. Hit her up!    

DD: You also enjoy comic books. What’s your favorite, and why do you like it? 

JC: I would have to say The Uncanny X-Men during the Claremont/Byrne years. I loved the art; the characters were well fleshed out, and they pushed some really serious subjects. Something you didn’t see in a lot of comics back then.    

DD: If readers were to check out your blog, Forge of the Wordsmith, what would they find? 

JC: Don’t do it! I’m so bad at blogging. Check out my Facebook page instead. Lots of Corgis and writer panels.   

DD: Do you have any advice for someone writing their first book? 

JC: My sixth book comes out this year, so I’m still a newbie wandering around in the dark. That being said, get the words down. The more you write, the easier it becomes. And definitely check out Rick Gualtieri’s Tales of a Midlist Author and John G. Hartness’s John at Falstaff Books videos. They both give solid real-world advice for new writers.    

DD: What’s next for you? 

JC: Lock’s Celestial Blunder just went to the editor, and we’re currently turning Lock’s Galactic Mess into an audiobook. After that I’m going to finish Runes of Fire, the fourth book in Recollections of a Rune Knight series. Then I plan on starting a new series that I swear will not be horror comedy.   

Thank you for having me.  

DD: Thank you for your time. 

For more information about Jack Cullen, visit his website, https://www.jackcullenwrites.com, and check out his social media: