The Time Travelers' Club: Author's Note

Author's Note

“Jack the Ripper?  You’re telling me that a kid that’s in this club actually knows the identity of…  Excuse me, I think I’ll go sit at another table.”  I started to get up.  He grabbed my coat sleeve.

“We want you. What do you think about writing a book, or maybe a few, about one of the most secretive clubs in the world?” he asked. 

Let me stop there.  You see, anxious reader, I met one of the "characters" in this book through a mutual acquaintance at a coffee shop where I live.  I use the term "character" because he was exactly that...  a funny, charming, interesting young man who wore something that looked like something of which Willie Wonka would have been jealous.  Okay, back to where I left off.

“You want me to believe that you are a member of some time-traveling club?”

He grinned.

I worried that he might attack me if I laughed at him.  So, I politely nodded and smiled.  “Okay.”

“We want kids to believe in the magic that’s out there.”

“Really.  Magic.  A book of incantations, Jack the Ripper, some weird Doctor, a secret time-traveling club that has members all over the world…”

Let me stop again.  

Dear reader, this was just part of the conversation that I had with the Willie-Wonka-wanna-be in a coffee shop.  I did listen to him.  And yes, I finally began to believe him. 

This story you are about to read is what was told to me.  Yep, at the time, I was a 42-year-old guy (practically an old man) with no real belief that magic existed in the world…  At least, not until I finished writing their story.  So I’ll let you read about Sam and Mrs. Steers and time travel and how when Sam was lost in the back streets of 1880s London he saw…  

I’ll stop there.