The magnificent thing about your own story--what makes it better than any other story in the world--is that it's always changing. And you hold the pen.

About Me

My name is Jared Hammer. I'm a Los Angeles native, an author, and a lover of all things to do with air and space and adventure. I'm an explorer and scientist at my core, something that drove me to become a United States Space Force Guardian, but in my free time, I enjoy doing most anything outdoors—hiking, kayaking, camping, surfing—just as long as I'm there with my family. 

My family is the best part of me. First, my better half Jill, to whom I've been married since 2014, followed a few years later by our three kiddos. We're nomadic at heart, an attribute of ours that pairs well with the military lifestyle. Traveling and seeing new places is in our DNA—exploring the world, trying new foods, soaking in new cultures, and peeling back the rich layers of this home we call Earth.
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But I'm nothing without my God. He's given me everything good in my life, including my talents, which I hope to be able to share with you in an uplifting way. I believe media can be both entertaining and wholesome, a philosophy that seems to flow upriver more and more nowadays. But if you feel the way I do, stick around and keep an eye out for the next time I decide to put pen to paper.

Much love,
​J.C. Hammer

Accomplishments // Experience

Silver Honorable Mention - Writers of the Future Q3, 2020 - Incognito
Honorable Mention - Writers of the Future Q4, 2021 - Deathwriter
Honorable Mention - Writers of the Future Q4, 2022 - Sound of Silence
Top Academic Graduate - USAF Officer Training School
Distinguished Graduate - USAF Officer Training School
Teacher, Physics and Earth Science - Westlake High School
BS, Physical Science Education, Magna Cum Laude | Minor, Astronomy - Brigham Young University
Intern, Education Outreach Team - NASA Langley Research Center
Intern, Astronomy Education Team - National Air and Space Museum

Author Profiles

Goodreads

Amazon

Author // Explorer
How I Got Into Writing​

​One thing you need to know about me is that my head is always somewhere else. In my mind, a bus turns into a plane, a plane turns into a spaceship, a trail up a mountain becomes a journey on a never-before-seen planet. It's how I've always been since I was little.

I grew up in a tiny apartment in the back of my grandpa's drainage and sprinkler company. Though the home itself was small—not much more than a main room about the size of a twenty-foot hallway with three lofts—the warehouse was huge, and it was filled with all sorts of my grandpa's equipment and company trucks. Most of my time was spent riding excavators into battle, or flying to Mars in a dump truck, or diving to unknown depths in industrial-sized PVC pipes. 

Though I grew older, I never stopped pretending, and as the years went on, my imagined worlds became larger and more complex. One day, when I was in college sitting behind the desk of my music library job, I decided to write them down. So, I wrote the first chapter of my very first book, which eventually became the beginning of The Alpine Insurrection. I got busy with school after a while, but during the summer I had the amazing opportunity to intern with the National Air and Space Museum. My wife and I, being as frugal as we are, rented a cheap room in the very corner of DC, which meant an hour-long bus ride there and back every single day. So what did I do? I pulled out that story I started and continued writing on my phone (thank you Google Docs). One summer later, I had a whole novel. 

To that point I hadn't written more than a ten page term paper.

Now, if you were to see my first draft, it would look nothing like the story we have today: different characters, different plot, different scenery. It took years to edit it until it seemed and felt right. 

After that summer, writing became my hobby, and now whenever I have a free minute or I'm waiting for a meeting to start, stuck in line at the DMV or what have you, I pull out my phone and write. It's how I turn my imagination into reality.

Science fiction is only one word away from science. I'm powered by discovery.