Tom Starita

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m just your typical writer dude. Born in Brooklyn, spent most of my life in Staten Island with stops in Jersey and Long Island to get some added flavor and I finished up my tour of the tri-state area by moving to Connecticut where I live with my beautiful wife Shannon and our chorgi named Lola.

So far I’ve put out two novels, “Two Ways to Sunday,” a religious/inspirational book about a man named Chris Marcum, who agrees to relive a harder version of his life to prove that his faith isn’t based on material success. The second one, “Growth and Change Are Highly Overrated,” has been called, “profound satire” and asks the question, “Does growing up mean selling out?”

I’m not saying they are the two best books ever written but they are. You should stop reading right now and buy them, then come back to this informative interview.

But you don’t care about that stuff–you want the juicy details about my life. The nitty and the gritty. The whole kumbaya.

I’m a NY Mets fan. I would trade the last five years off my life to win the World Series this year. My wife has graciously accepted the constant sounds of SNY in our home and the checking of the phone if we’re out somewhere but she drew the line at naming our dog, “Mookie.”

The best television show of all time is LOST and anyone who says, “such and such didn’t make sense” clearly wasn’t watching. THEY EXPLAINED THE POLAR BEARS IN SEASON 3!

I love the movie, “Interstellar” and everything about Matthew Mcconaughey’s relationship with Murph.

I once heckled Paul Anka at Foxwoods Casino.

I am undefeated as an arm wrestler

If I wear lifts in my shoes I’m a shade over six feet tall.

I love to laugh and love even more to make others laugh.

I hate tying my shoe laces because they’re just going to become untied again.

I also love the suit/no tie look.

I prefer to call my hair platinum blonde as opposed to silver.

I cannot dance–and my wife is a great dancer and I love that she believes that one day my hips won’t lie.

I invented the two day stubble look that all men have currently adopted. It was born out of laziness.

I’m also responsible for McDonalds going all white meat for their chicken fingers. You’re welcome.

I could keep going but I’m pretty sure the editors here are going to grow tired of this nonsense and start liberally chopping things out so I’ll end on this one:

People say I have “mannequin looking feet” due to their flatness, a lack of hair and overall opaqueness.

Also, “Overall Opaqueness” would make a great band name.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my new book is, “Growth and Change Are Highly Overrated.”

With a title like that you know there’s a story behind it…

It was February 2013, the week of Valentine’s Day. I was living alone in the lovely town of Weehawken, NJ and to put it bluntly, life sucked. Like one continuous bad day for months at a time.

On top of that, I came down with the worst flu in the history of modern medicine. It was so bad my doctor wrote about me in some medical journal.

So life wasn’t good.

All week I had been locked inside my apartment, sleeping the days away. I was finally well enough to crawl out of bed Friday night and I was starving.

Beyond starving.

I hadn’t eaten anything in days. I looked over at the clock and saw it was 11pm. Okay, ordering takeout was no longer an option. I looked out the window and noticed almost a foot of snow had descended upon my town while I was hibernating. So I wasn’t going to go out and get food either. My last option was the kitchen and that’s when I remembered I hadn’t gone food shopping in almost two weeks.

In summation, it was too late for take out, I was snowed in and I had no food in my house.

And that’s when I officially declared that this, this was the worst moment of my entire life.

That’s when I also thought, this would be one hell of a beginning for a book.

I went into my office, started typing and immediately found my main character, Lucas James. I didn’t know if I had a short story, a novel or just some bizarre journal entry. All I knew was he made me laugh and kept making me laugh.

After that, my only motivation to get out of bed each morning was to find out what came next.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Nothing that would make you judge me hard enough to quit reading.

I have found that caffeine and live music on Youtube empties my mind long enough for something interesting to appear.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
That’s a great question and sadly I don’t have one specific influence. I guess I’m influenced by writers and entertainers who wrote and spoke honestly in their work. You don’t need to write a confessional to write something honest, as long as the foundation of what you’re writing about is based on some sort of truth. I think readers pick up on that.

What are you working on now?
I have a book of short stories that I decided to bundle together under the title, “Total BS (Bedtime Stories).” They’re weird, they’re nonsensical and they’re short enough to keep reading just one more.

I’m also working on a movie script just because I’ve never written one and I enjoy a challenge.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I find standing on a street corner yelling at passing cars and strangers really helps get the word out.

Also tweeting to my 350 followers really revs that engine.

If you want to follow me on Twitter and see other examples of great band names go search @TomStarita

Do you have any advice for new authors?
If you have any dreams or illusions of grandeur type them up, print them out, walk outside and light them on fire.

Write something that you want to read. If anyone else on this planet enjoys it you’ve won.

Find someone who is your sledgehammer. I call my wife Shannon my Sledgehammer because she is brutally honest with me. If something doesn’t work she tells me and more importantly, she tells me why. It’s fantastic because I know when she likes something she’s not blowing smoke. The only reason why I didn’t give up on this book is because she loved it and for that I’ll always be grateful.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Go back in time and buy stock in Google

What are you reading now?
“Sleeping Beauties” by Owen and Stephen King

What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m assuming once everyone reads this interview my book sales will go through the roof and I’ll be on Kimmel. So I guess the next thing is get a haircut.

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 hate this question because I always feel like I’m being judged with my answers.

Something Stephen King

“Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin

A Pearls Before Swine collection by Stephen Pastis

As soon as I hit submit I’m going to think of a better answer and die of regret. Or get indigestion from remorse.

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