Ever since I discovered and started frequenting Geocities' chat rooms in early December 1997 (initial www connection in April 1997), these questions and more have been posed to me and I've always made it a point to give pretty straight answers (while, I believe, still protecting my privacy for the most part) as I believe that truth and basic trust are important values to be shared. Although since late 1999 I've ceased chatting, I've kept in sporadic e-mail contact with a few interesting and caring people I initially met in there. They know me to be a formerly married male (separated 2009) with two children(our first child, a boy, was born in 2000 and our daughter was born in 2004), 48, originally from Eastern Ontario, Canada (a short drive NW of Ottawa and residing in London, Ontario (2 hours west of Toronto by car) since December 2001, and that I can speak English, French, Esperanto and a bit of Spanish and German, and that I work as a provincial civil servant and that my avocation is writing. This is what I'd told them about me and this is, in fact, who I am.
As for the name "Roansart" [ pronounced: ROHanzart] , it has it's origins from the centre of my musical taste (1970's Rock music -- this was the period of my adolescence and the music I listened to then has remained my favourite) from which I borrowed the name and elements of the personal history for the main character of a "work in progress" novel The Terran Chronicles. One of my favourite albums, Going for the One (1977) by British group Yes contains a song called Turn of the Century which features an artist (sculptor) named Roan who starts to sculpt an image of his wife and, when she dies after a long illness, puts all his life's energy into trying to finish it in order to bring her back so they can be together again ...
In my novel, the main character of the central part of the story with the same name is a young man whose beloved wife is killed while they are trying to get back together after undergoing a forced separation (events revolving around the Tien An Men Massacre of June 1989 in Beijing) and who spends his life creating the dream they both shared, a monumental cultural testomony to the spirit of Terran civilization, while all the while he suffers the continual, slow-motion replaying of events burned indelibly into his memory from the last few days they were together after their escape from government troops to the actual moment of her violent death for which he erroneously carries a heavy guilt ...
Thus, as you can see, the pseudonym "Roansart" is but a humble form of homage to the story and emotions created in this song composed by Jon Anderson, Steve Howe and Alan White -- I am simply borrowing the bare character of their Roan and fashioning it in a different image, and have chosen my "net" identity to speak of who I am as an artist, a writer.
For a few other details and glimpses into Roansart, check out this link: More
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