Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
• I was born in Lincoln, England and emigrated to the United States as a child, the son of WWII refugees. I have an MA in English from UCLA where I was the Editor-in-Chief of its literary magazine, and then went on to teach English at local universities/colleges for a number of years. I left the U.S. after my own children were grown to sail and experience life in the Caribbean.
My new novel, A Family Garden, attempts to answer an essential question: Can love once forsaken ever be redeemed? The story revolves around an unlikely trio who are chased up California’s coast by drug dealers and fanatics to a drug rehab in Canada where an impending lover’s reunion will be their last chance to recover what they’ve lost and their first chance to find the new life they desperately seek. Mature lovers and young lovers. Promises and betrayals. A Family Garden transforms the journey North into a complex journey inward, where the trio must each find the strength to overcome their demons or lose forever the love they desperately need.
My first novel, High Pocket, which will soon be available on Amazon, is an action/adventure story about a modern-day gold miner named Jake, who falls in love with the daughter of a crippled miner who tells him the unbelievable story of a cavern of gold he found in the accident that nearly took his life. When the Jake’s own brother is killed in a brutal mining accident brought about by the greed of the mine’s management, Jake puts his own life on the line to descend two miles inside the mine to see if the cavern still exists and to retrieve the gold.
My memoir, Passage From England, details the emotional journey of my search for home, interweaving the adventures and tragedies of my immigrant childhood in America’s 50s and 60s with the unusual experiences of my early retirement in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Told from two points of view and spanning five decades, the multiple journeys of the child and the man enrich one another, providing an understanding of the demons that pursued me while uncovering the spirit of endurance that was fostered within.
I’ve also written a number of screenplays, as well as the libretto for classical opera, Ode To Phaedra, which was inducted into the Oxford University Archives of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama.
My website, My So-Called Paradise (www.mysocalledparadise.com), includes weekly posts of contemporary observations of urban living, short stories, poems, etc., as well as free excerpts from my books.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book, of course, is A Family Garden. It was inspired by my attempt to complete the themes of my memoir, Passage From England, without further alienating my family who remain alive and well. In the memoir, I told the unvarnished truth, painful as it was for many in my family. However, since the bulk of the story took place in my long-ago past, most of the difficult parts were mitigated by the sheer vagaries of time. To complete the story in the present day would’ve been too much for my family, and my friends, to tolerate.
After a number of years thinking about the problem, I found the right fictional world in which complete the themes of Passage From England, to remain honest to myself and to keep my family still answering my emails and phone calls. I’ve described A Family Garden above, so let me just repeat the essential setup of the novel: Can love once forsaken ever be redeemed? This accurately sums up the through-line of my memoir as well.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t think so. Although, I’ve talked to many writers who enjoy noisy environments, say a Starbucks, or some prefer headphones and background music. For me, silence and no distraction are key to allow me to focus and hear the sound of the words and sentences and paragraphs in my head. I like to reread what I’ve written over and over again in the composition stage. It’s essential that the sound of the work is comfortable and rhythmic in my head. Anything that interferes with my internal dialog makes it impossible for me to write.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Honestly, too many to list and really too many for me to accurately attribute. I was an undergrad English student, then earned a Masters Degree in Literature (UCLA), then entered a Ph.D. program (UCLA), then abandoned it. The English Literary Canon of all the “greats” infiltrated my mind early on, from Chaucer to E.L Doctorow and beyond. My Masters Thesis was on F. Scott Fitzgerald, a common icon, but a hell of a writer with perfect pitch.
I do want to add that music and the lyrics of singer-song writers were a big influence for me and many other writers. The greats of my generation in this area are Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen, and their influence is difficult to overstate.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a new book at the moment, and continuing to market A Family Garden. The marketing effort is similar to writing in the sense that I have to make a schedule for marketing and a separate schedule for writing. To be honest, balancing the two efforts is not a pleasant activity for me, but it must be done.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’ve had my own website for a decade now (www.mysocalledparadise.com) and my long-suffering subscribers hear about my book launches first and probably too regularly. I also try to take advantage of various social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) with varying degrees of concentration and success. I reach out reviewers and promoters such as this site when I can and where I can. I’m not very good at it, and tend to falter just when I should persist. I’m a writer, which is akin to dreaming, so I’m always optimistic that my books will run wild. Silly, I know, but there it is.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Writers are as individual as anyone else, so good advice for one writer might be useless for another. If forced, though, I’d say reading and writing are tightly linked, at least in my experience. So I’d advise writers to read a lot, read what you like, and your own writing style and subject will likely emerge.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
In regards to writing…and again this is for my particular writing characteristics…set a schedule for writing each day if possible, but certainly write five days a week at least, even if for a short, repeated period. The reason the schedule works well is that writing is generally an unnatural and difficult task, a job really. So it’s easy to put it off, especially if what you’re writing is not being paid for up front. The schedule is the driver of your work. Obey the schedule, try never to deviate from it. Surprisingly, as time goes by, the work gets written, the projects get completed, and you feel a little sense of accomplishment, which is what most writers hope for.
What are you reading now?
I’m normally reading two or three books at the same time, sketchy attention span, I guess. Right now I’m reading High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic, by Glenn Frankel. I’m also reading, as is everyone else on the planet, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari, Tenth of December: Stories, by George Saunders.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m working on a new book at the moment, and continuing to market A Family Garden. The marketing effort is similar to writing in the sense that I have to make a schedule for marketing and a separate schedule for writing. To be honest, balancing the two efforts is not a pleasant activity for me, but it must be done.
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?
Well, impossible to answer, really, because selection is such a limitation and it skews my interests, but I’ll play along. Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. Beloved by Toni Morrison.
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