As someone said to me not long ago, “I’ll bet there is an interesting story to go with each of your books.”

Here are a couple to go with Atlantis Rising, recently republished by Galde Press (galdepress.com):

Although the book was first published by Dell Books in 1973 and as Frank Joseph, who wrote the Foreword to the new edition, observed, it “reignited public interest” in Atlantis, and as William H. Kennedy notes, it “was the very first work to suggest that ancient people were visited by extraterrestrials who helped shape an antediluvian global culture,” the book was actually written in 1969-’70. An editor who had been advancing up the literary ladder, moving from smaller houses to larger ones, called me when she assumed editorship at Dell Books and said, “Let’s do that big book on Atlantis that we’ve talked about.”

After I had completed the book, I learned that Dell had exciting news for me. Walt Disney studios wanted to option Atlantis Rising for a motion picture. We met with a number of executives at Disney in New York, and it seemed a sure thing that my book would be the basis for a film. Publication of Atlantis Rising would, however, be delayed in order to coincide more closely with the release of the film.Although any author worth his ink is eager to see a completed work in print, to be linked to a Disney film seemed a small sacrifice of ego to make for a delay in publication. However, as many an author has learned to his dismay, there is a world of difference between an option and the actual production and release of a film. I have had many of my books optioned. The only one to make it to the screen thus far has been one completely outside the realm of the paranormal, UFOs, or Atlantis-- Valentino, the biography of the great silent screen lover, optioned and actually made by Ken Russell. The only tangible thing with which I was left from the Disney experience was a fistful of Mickey Mouse pens for my children.

My Dell editor moved on to another publisher, and the years passed. Disney finally made Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2001, which bombed at the box office-- the studio’s rightful Karma, I felt for not filming Atlantis Rising. But back in 1970-‘72, my inquiries to Dell about the fate of my book were met with confused and awkward patches of silence. My agent guessed that they had lost the manuscript and that the book would never be published.

Then, incredibly, with but a couple of weeks to go on their contractual rights of possession, someone at Dell found the manuscript of Atlantis Rising and announced that it would be published as soon as possible. Within a few months after publication in 1973, Atlantis Rising had gone into eleven printings.

Another interesting story that occurred during the writing of the book was the strange telephone call that I received while working late one night on the manuscript from someone who claimed to be an Atlantean and who was calling from one of their undersea bases. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: Why should I be surprised if I, an author of the strange and unusual, received a call from a nut who believed that he was living in a city under the ocean? Maybe. But I just happened to be working on Chapter Five: “Mighty Teachers from an Undersea Kingdom” when he called.

If Atlantis should still exist, I am convinced that the most likely place for its domain would be under our seas. In 1969, Dr. Roger W. Wescott, chairman of the anthropology department at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, published The Divine Animal, in which he presented a well-reasoned theory that extraterrestrials had landed on Earth circa 10,000 years ago, intending to teach humankind a better way of life. The anthropologist feels that the space travelers were viewed as gods by our human ancestors, but when Earth's dominant species continued to demonstrate their avaricious and destructive nature, the extraterrestrials gave up in disgust and withdrew to establish undersea bases.

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