Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Don’t Kill Me Because I’m Beautiful is my debut novel, but I’m no (male) debutant! I’ve written and produced thousands of hours of television including shows such as The Simpsons, Everybody Hates Chris, The Larry Sanders Show, and even Bosom Buddies. I’m a multi-Emmy Award nominee as well as a multi-WGA Award nominee. I live in Los Angeles in a big house in Brentwood with my wife and a beautiful dog named Ollie whose a criminal that steals and eats things which aren’t his.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Don’t Kill Me Because I’m Beautiful is a thriller set in Hollywood which is really the only town I can write authoritatively about as I’ve lived and worked here for decades. Many of the characters in the novel were inspired by real people, even the awful ones. Mostly the awful ones.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Well before iPhones I’ve always walked around my neighborhood with a recording device and transcribe the recordings into text. Walking and talking aloud is the best way to shake loose the ideas I have for scenes, characters, and plot, but I write lime a normal person, at a desk on a computer.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck, Gillian Flynn, Walter Mosely, Michael Chichton, and many others.
What are you working on now?
I’m just starting a YA novel about a 15-year-old boy who meets a girl, his soulmate at a residential mental health program for teens where neither of them belongs. They get caught up in a world where a nuclear war is started by accident and the fallout may end life on the planet. It’s both as grim as it sounds but also funny as hell satire.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’ve found freebooksy to be both effective and too expensive. The Fussy Librarian is also excellent.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Be open to criticism and seek as much of it for your work as possible before publishing. Try not to be defensive and try to find beta readers who don’t know or care about you because they’ll be honest where your brother, sister, mother, and father will not be.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
No one in the writing business, whether it be TV or novels, is looking to give you a break, so don’t ask for one. They’re looking for you to give *them* a break by doing excellent work and delivering the goods.
What are you reading now?
Nevil Shute’s On the Beach.
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?
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, A Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson,
Author Websites and Profiles
Howard Gewirtz Website
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Goodreads Profile
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