I am John De Silva, and I was born in post independent era of Ceylon as Sri Lanka was known then. I had my secondary education at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo. My Alma Mater is a leading catholic school in the country. I had my baptism in writer-ship under the watchful eyes of my English teacher Rev. Fr. Marcelline Jayakody, who was a versatile writer and a national literary figure
I am a Master Mariner ( Merchant ship captain) by profession. I joined the Merchant Navy as an officer cadet in December, 1973 and have a sea service of nearly thirty years. I obtained the Master Mariner certificate, which is the highest sea-going qualification in December, 1989 and have been in command of ships, since then.
Not much writing, except for personal correspondences was done, during the earlier days of my seafaring.
Memories, we either cherish or lament over, become the ingredients, source or material in story writing. They create the necessary milieu and persuade one to pen –down for one’s own pleasure and satisfaction and those endowed with the talent of story writing or narrating life experience with eloquence take the next step and put them together to come in book form.
As result of the above, my foray, “Through Deep Waters” was written and published in April, 2008. The second book - “Sounds of Many Waters”, is being published by Dorrance Publishing. The book is expected to be published in September, 2009.
In my work, I include relevant scriptures to go with certain stories, and my intention is to pass on God’s messages to the reader. Also, I convey messages to the reader, through my books. The messages are through my experiences. The experiences, which includes extremely dangerous ones that, I have had, specially, whenever I ignored or went against Gods words. My fourth book, still to be completed and named, covers a full story and have high lighted Psalm 49:20 and Psalm 91:14.
My family and I migrated to the United States in December 2008, and we live in New York.
My prayer is “ God help me and use me “ through my writing to change the heart of even one person, the same way it was done to me, and my will has been answered.