Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve been writing professionally, in one way or another, all my adult life. I was a TV promotion director, founder and creative director of a NY ad agency, public relations specialist, playwright, and novelist. I’ve written several books, including the murder mystery NICE PLACE FOR A MURDER, ARE YOU JEWISH? a collection of one-act comedy plays (which have been produced by groups across the US and as far away as London, Rome, Israel, and Aukland), business books including recently published START A BUSINESS – WORK FROM HOME.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest opus is BASEBALL TEAM SIGNS GEEZER, which is either a long short story or a short novella. It’s a story that’s been marinating in my mind for several months, about a 67-year-old geezer who happens to be a sensational hitter. Despite his age, he’s signed by a professional team, with the proviso that he maintains an unreasonably high batting average, and with the added motivation that if he breaks the season batting average of Ted Williams, who batted .406 for the Red Sox in 1940’s, he will receive a huge bonus. My own fascination with baseball began when I married my wife, who is a lifelong Yankees fan. Now I’m a Yankees fan, too. That’s real love for ya.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My writing habits are bad ones. The worst is my tendency to go over what I’ve just written again and again. If I were wise I’d just knock out a first draft as fast as possible, then go back and polish it when it’s all done. As Ernest Hemingway is supposed to have said, “First drafts are sh**.”
What authors, or books have influenced you?
The author who has influenced me most is Vladimir Nabokov – whose course in European literature I took when he taught at Cornell. It’s only in retrospect that I’ve come to realize how much I learned from this master prose stylist. All these years later, I continue to go back over his lectures. I enjoy the Russian writers, especially Tolstoy. I am the only person I know who has actually read WAR AND PEACE — twice! (I can’t understand why people say it’s long and difficult. Yes, it’s long. But the story is a real page-turner.) I don’t claim to write like the masters. My style is simple and direct. Like most writers, I do the very best I can.
What are you working on now?
I’m revising a romance novel I wrote some time ago. I wrote it just to see if I could write in a genre I knew little about. Bad idea. Now I think I know what’s wrong with it. We’ll see.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I really have yet to discover the best promotion method. If you have a method that works, please let me in on it.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
The wit Dorothy Parker is supposed to have said, “I don’t like to write. I like to have written.” If you want to be a writer, you gotta WRITE. Then when people ask you what you do, you can honestly say, “I’m a writer.” I have a theory that all writers have a million bad words inside them, and the good words don’t start to come until they get the bad ones out of their system.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
An early boss of mine once advised me, “Do something that makes money while you sleep.” I still think that’s a grand idea. But I haven’t found a way to be successful other than working very hard. I guess the best advice to any writer is: WRITE. You may never be brilliant, but you do get better. And from what I’ve observed, you don’t have to be brilliant to be very, very successful.
What are you reading now?
It seems I’m always in the middle of three or four books at the same time. I’m reading NABOKOV IN AMERICA, by Roper, a new bio of the writer; THE REDEEMER, a murder mystery by the excellent Jo Nesbo; the recently published COLLECTED POEMS of Mark Strand, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. I have also been reading the most recent translation of DON QUIXOTE for years now. It’s very funny stuff. I’m determined to finish it.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have a kindle short story, THE LAST OF THE BERGMANNS, which I think would make a strong one-act play, maybe even a three-act. Stay tuned.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I’d take DON QUIXOTE, so I could have the time to finally finish it; BLEAK HOUSE, by Dickens; and Bittman’s HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING, because I like good food.