Ethan Wilcox ‘27 has built up an astonishing repertoire in a short amount of time. Already a published author before he left high school, Wilcox has three novels published on Amazon through their Kindle service. Wilcox describes his latest book, The Dark Between the Stars to the Megaphone: 

“It is the  578th millennium, and mankind has it all: infinite power, immortal lives, the universe as a playground. For all intents and purposes, they are gods. And yet, Miles Perez has lost his family and spends his eternity trying to forget it all at the bottom of the bottle… At the same time, Magnolia is grieving the loss of a love, too. Rather than falling into misery, she looks at life—anything is possible. Miles and Magnolia can travel in time; they can create or destroy things on a whim.”

Wilcox describes the writing process by “imagining what a person would do with an immortal lifespan in the far, far future…it was an open sandbox for me. I could do whatever I wanted. I have a character traveling in time, which is fairly common. If you have an immortal life, you may as well mess around in whatever time period you want. So I have a character going… back to the Roaring Twenties for a simpler life. She meets a man there who’s quick to fall head over heels for her, and Magnolia wonders, ‘Will this love, too, lead to pain?’ 

He questions his audience: “When Magnolia and Miles’ stories collide, will they come to terms with his past and change, or will he lose himself entirely to absolute power and corruption?” 

Wilcox recalls the writing process as “difficult” due to the the high-concept nature of the book. “Because it takes place so damn far in the future,” he says, “it’s hard to conceptualize. Especially with characters who can do literally anything—there are many scenes that take place all throughout history. And ultimately, for all of human history, we’ve indulged ourselves in substances and abused ourselves in that way. What I reckon is that at the end of a life, when you’re immortal, if you’re sick enough, how much could you juice yourself up?” 

Though young, Wilcox has developed his own style throughout his career. Rather than outline his plots, Wilcox opts for a more freestyle approach. “I honestly just jump into it,” he explains, “when I feel the inspiration strike me, I write out basically one page and see what happens.I don’t think I can really understand my characters unless I’ve written about them for an extended period of time. So I don’t really know what actions they’re specifically going to make throughout the course of the story, unless I’ve delved into the heart of them for a while.” 

Like any artist, Wilcox feels the effects of passion and dedication committed to his work. “I started this novel—it must have been 2022. I had just finished my third book in the series and I wanted to move on to something different…I ended up going a little sadder. It’s fair to say I’m a vastly different person than when I first started [this novel]. I’ve had my fair share of the ups and downs of love, which I think helps put into perspective the events of the book and how people can grieve and move on.” The feeling of love and grief is very much imbued into the fabric of The Dark Between the Stars. Its protagonists, though having achieved power beyond that of gods, still struggle with feelings all too human. This theme seems to echo through his repertoire. 

“I’ve always written stories,” Wilcox reflects, “from the time that I was four, scratching out Spider-Man vs. Venom on construction paper, all the way up to writing like four-page superhero stories in middle school. I published my first novel called Nuclear Winter in 2020[…]and I haven’t stopped writing since. In the following two years, I published The Fall and The Talisman.” 

Wilcox  recounted how his writing style has evolved over time throughout his journey at Southwestern, “I think it’s opened me up to how people work in general. For a lot of my high school experience, I was a very shy kid, and didn’t have many friends. I painted a lot at home, and I wrote a lot. I didn’t have many close connections with people. But now that I’ve kind of opened up, cracked out of my shell, it’s wonderful to see the vastly different ways people operate their lives, and 100% contributes to my writing process. It leads to the creation of some hopefully better-fleshed-out characters.” 

Wilcox’s unique brand of boundary-pushing writing comes at a strange time for the industry. “One of the things that I’m personally really concerned about is how […] the contentification of literature and ….how artificial intelligence may eventually result …in a lot of damage to the publishing industry,” he shared.

I asked him about his concerns about it affecting the future of literature, as programs like ChatGPT and Gemini claim to represent a labor-free alternative to literature. “Artificial intelligence scares me to death,” he replied, “in this beautiful, sad little world, what else is there but art? And with artificial intelligence, the meaning behind that art is sapped away; there’s no emotion in AI-created art, or music, or writing. It’s just copies upon copies of that emotion.” 

Though The Dark Between the Stars has just dropped, Wilcox shows no signs of slowing down. He states, “I have little bits of stories rattling around inside my brain. I’ve got one I’m thinking about magic in the Civil War, with hell, demons, and that kind of thing, and historical fiction. I’m also in the opening stages of a romance, a field I’ve never tried out before. I think it’ll be fun.”

One thing that is abundantly clear throughout The Dark Between the Stars and in our conversation is that Ethan possesses a unique ability to tune in to human relationships and discuss their impact, something I took a moment to ask him about. “For a lot of my characters,” he told me, “I know how I feel when I’m in love, so that seeps into the way I write my characters. I feel like that’s very natural. Now, don’t get me wrong, not all of my characters act in the way I do. People do awful things in my book. But, having a foundation of love in my heart for partners, for my family, for everybody on earth, that informs the way my characters love too.” It is abundantly evident that, though its protagonists have achieved a state quite unrecognizable to humanity, this book is achingly and powerfully human. The Dark between the Stars is available to purchase on Kindle now and is free with Kindle unlimited.