In a recent interview with author Tim Bryant, we explored the ideas and motivations behind his latest literary work ‘World Of Rivers‘.
Q1. Welcome! How are you doing?
I’m good. Busy. Struggling with things like everybody else, but trying to remain joyful in spite.
Q2. Please tell our readers about your new book.
World of Rivers opens in WWII Manila, where nineteen-year-old Bluford “Blue” Thorn climbs a telephone pole and glimpses a world divided by fear, duty, and desire. From that precarious height, his life—and the lives of those who follow—begin to branch and flood outward. Across decades and continents, from the Philippines to the American South and West, Blue’s choices ripple through generations: lovers separated and reunited, children born into secrets, music threading through grief and grace alike.
The novel spans families and frontiers, tracing the tides of love, guilt, and redemption that bind people long after they’ve drifted apart. Told in luminous, cinematic prose, World of Rivers moves through jungles and juke joints, small towns and cities still healing from war, until it arrives at a gathering that feels both inevitable and miraculous.
At once an intimate story of survival and a grand meditation on inheritance, World of Rivers reminds us that history is not a single current but many—each life a tributary feeding the others, carrying us, again and again, toward home.
Q3. Any favorite author of yours that you would like to share with our readers?
Flannery O’Connor because she made me want to be a writer many years ago. I still measure all of my work against her classic stories. I never quite measure up, but I’m measuring against the correct author, the correct source. The other answer is Joe R. Lansdale. He’s been a good friend to me for many years, and what he taught me was, a writer in East Texas can be just as good, just as effective as one from anywhere else. I used to think all the good writers were in L.A. or New York. But Flannery lived in Georgia and Joe lives in the same town I live in.
Q4. Any writing mantra or daily ritual that you follow in order to stay creative?
Just to write a little bit every day. I teach that in my classes, and I try to follow it. I used to have more of a ritual. I wrote at night, and everything had to be just so. Now, after years of doing it, I can pretty much snap in and out of whatever I’m writing, wherever it might be. But it’s like lifting weights. The more you do it, the stronger you get. The only other thing I can say is, find your source as a writer and stay connected, as much as possible.
Q5. What’s next? Which book or project are you working on now?
I’ve got several things in the works. I’m probably most known for the five-book Dutch Curridge Mystery series. I think I may be writing a sixth book in that series in 2026. There are plans to re-launch the Bywater/Upriver books as well. Then there’s also a non-fiction book I’m writing that goes along with the Creative Writing classes that I teach. It’s going to be a book on writing, but maybe coming from a bit of a philosophical angle.
Q6. Finally, as we ask all our guests, do you have any closing thoughts that you would like to share with the world and our readers?
Sure. I’m an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church and so I call myself the Minister of Kindness. To me, it really is like a religion. I think the world needs more kindness, the people around us need more kindness. So I would say reach out to people, speak to someone you might have a tendency to bypass. Help someone who needs a little help. Break the algorithm. Make a difference in the world right around you. If enough people were to do that, it would indeed change the world. Maybe not the entirety of it, but at least the world that you live in.
And read World Of Rivers. A lot of my life philosophy is bound up in it. Between the lines and right there in black and white. This book took me fifteen years. In other words, I’ve been writing my way to it for fifteen years. Was the end result worth the work and the wait? Absolutely. I couldn’t have written it fifteen or ten or even four or five years ago. It was too big to get my arms around. It’s still bigger than me.
About the author: Tim Bryant is the acclaimed author of Bywater, Dutch Curridge, Spirit Trap, and other novels. His work blends history, noir soul, Americana, musical myth and spiritual Americana. Living in East Texas, Bryant writes with a living oral voice — one foot in the haunted past, one foot in the American now — always listening to what memory refuses to let die.