M. Ocampo McIvor

Writer of true stories disguised as fiction.

About

First things first...
It is a very interesting world we live in today, where we are urged to question the content we consume—from images, to claims of facts, to the ideas and stories in the books we read. As a technophile who has had a career in technology for 15 years before becoming an author, I am sincerely excited by the possibilities and positive impact AI can lend to society. (I use them myself to assist in my research and perform image and copyediting.) But I am also wary of the unforeseen and possibly unwanted effects it might bring. Today, scores of books are generated by AI and churned out in record time, like puppy mills, then packaged and sold as if a real human had toiled to create art. Rest assured that my books and stories were not, and will never be, written by AI. I alone wrote them. They sparked from my heart and soul—human and imperfect—seeking their purpose.Thank you in advance for supporting a real live human.Now on to the bio...
While working in the tech space, I read mainly non-fiction books on behavioral economics, neuroscience, physics, and of course, technology. Then at the airport one day, I picked up and read Isabel Allende’s Inés of My Soul and remembered how fiction spoke to my heart as well as educated and informed me. I had devoured fiction books growing up, but only after I had read all 15 volumes of the Charlie Brown Encyclopedia as a child in the 1980s. My old passion sparked, and recalling my love of Greek mythology, I picked up a slew of retellings by Mary Renault. Meanwhile, the wise words of old friends—dead poets, writers, and polymaths—quietly stirred within me, planting seeds. Then I picked up The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and by the end of the book I thought, what the heck: now is as good a time as any for me to write my own stories.Thus began my career as an indie author. I write about true things, in fiction form.For those interested in my background in more general terms, I was born in the Philippines, raised in Toronto, Canada, and until recently lived in Seattle, USA. My work has been featured in The Bangalore Review, Burningword Literary, Kelp Journal, Spillwords, and Rigorous, among others. I have a background in Journalism, Marketing, Digital Media and Communications, as well as Data Science, Usability, and Psychology. But the learning never stops. My hope is that my love of learning and passion for seeking to understand our place in the universe, as well as our relationship with one another, may serve as an endless reservoir of stories that will not only entertain you, but inform you, enlighten you, be your companion and guide, and let you know that though you are unique in all the world, you are not alone in your life’s journey.