Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I write articles, essays and other journalistic pieces for a variety of cultural journals, both print and online. I am also, on the side, a professional musician (violinist). My topics of interest are music, religion, and culture generally. “Joey Coletta” is my first screenplay, and it has been great fun from start to finish.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“The Incredible Life of Joey Coletta” is an homage to the classic family situation comedies of the 1950s and ’60s – shows like “Leave It to Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” “The Andy Griffith Show.” I was raised on those old shows and have always admired their wisdom and charm. My screenplay is about an average young boy named Joey Coletta, who auditions for a family sitcom in Hollywood on a whim and wins the lead role. We follow him as he deals with the trials and tribulations of child stardom in the late 1950s: temperamental directors, unscrupulous entertainment journalists, as well as his parents’ crumbling marriage. The story is full of whimsy and charm, and is in places very poignant.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I rarely if ever write my essays from beginning to end in sequence; instead I piece them together from brief sentence fragments, which gradually coalesce into a coherent form. I write very slowly. On any given day I might spend more time studying my subject matter than actually writing. Samuel Johnson once said that a person has to read a whole shelf full of books in order to write one book.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I especially like the great writers of the Christian tradition, from the Bible all the way through G.K. Chesterton (especially his book “Orthodoxy”), C.S. Lewis, Pope Benedict XVI, and others. Chesterton had a way of combining lightness and profundity that I admire. I suppose the biggest influence on “Joey Coletta” was the family sitcoms themselves, whose whimsical spirit I tried to capture. It is a genre that I believe has not been given its due by serious critics.
What are you working on now?
I am starting on a new screenplay. It is a period drama set in the early 1800s in America, something that I think has rarely been done. Needless to say, I hope that all my screenplays will some day be filmed, but in the meantime I hope that they can be read with pleasure as works of literature.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
That is something I have yet to discover, but I hope I am finding out!
What’s next for you as a writer?
To complete my second screenplay, and to continue my cultural commentary.