I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. I decided on a career in journalism in the seventh grade when a librarian who was the mother of a friend of mine gave me a copy of Ernie Pyle’s World War II book ‘Here Is Your War.’ His descriptions of everyday people trying their best to cope with extraordinary events made me think that I wanted to do the same kind of writing.
2. In what kind of environment do you work best in?
I prefer to write at home these days, although I did spend nearly 50 years writing in crowded, noisy newsrooms. Writing novels differs from writing news stories, however: I find I need some quiet spot with easy access to lots of coffee when I’m writing my books.
3. What's your favourite thing about being a writer?
I love everything about being a writer but I’d have to say that my favorite thing these days is having the time to fully develop my stories. As a reporter you face constant deadlines and there are always problems with space limitations. As a novelist I can now take whatever time – and space – I need to really give readers an opportunity to know the people in my stories and understand their motives.
4. How did you come up with the idea for your latest book?
Although I normally write mysteries, my latest book is an historical novel based on the parable in Matthew about the unfortunate third servant who was cast into the night for failing to increase his master’s wealth. I was attending Mass at St. Anthony’s church in Wilmington, Delaware and the sermon that Sunday was about that parable. As the priest was talking I started wondering what ever happened to that servant after he was cast out and, before I knew it, this whole story started unfolding in my mind. I started thinking that the unfortunate servant was a teenaged boy, which could explain his lack of confidence and his reluctance to risk censure if he invested his master’s money and lost it instead of increasing its value. With that in mind I started wondering where he would have gone after he was dismissed. From there it became a question of what adventures he might have had. It took a few years of writing and re-writing and a fair amount of research but I finally finished it in late October, 2014.
5. Do you ever base your characters on people you know?
I don’t base my characters on specific people but I do use traits from men, women and children I have meet over the years when writing my characters. For example: Marcy Pantano, the heroine of my mystery ‘Corpus Delectable,’ is an amalgamation of three women that I know.
6. Do you ever wish that some of your characters were real?
Oh yes, absolutely. I like most of the men and women I create. I recently wrote a blog post on Goodreads in which I eavesdropped on two of them as they were having coffee, in fact.
7. What do your family and friends think about your book/s?
Honestly, most of them aren’t readers and so most of them have never read any of my books. The few friends that have read my books tell me they like them very much and have written some very flattering reviews about them. As for my family: They’re all pretty much mystified by my choice of careers. My late father, for example, was an engineer who always wondered when I would get a real job. As far as he was concerned, writing should be confined to letters and reports. The rest of my family think I’m a little eccentric but as long as I’m not asking them for money to pay my rent they tolerate the idea that I’m a writer and always have been.
8. Do you plan out your books or do you just go with the flow?
I’m pretty much of a ‘go with the flow’ kind of person generally and that also applies to my writing. I have a basic idea in my head and when I start writing I let my characters, in essence, tell me what to say in my books… that sounds a bit odd, I know, but it seems to work.
9. If you could ask a character from any book a question, who would it be and what would you ask?
Wow, tough question. If I’m asking a character from one of my own books a question I’d have to choose Carla Cristoforo, a former nun who becomes a police detective in my mystery ‘The Session.’ I’d ask her why she decided to be a cop after leaving the Sisterhood. If I’m choosing a character from the rest of the world of books I think I’d pick Travis McGee from John D. MacDonald’s series and ask him if, when all is said and done, he’s happy about the way his life turned out.
10. Who is your favourite author?
Another tough question: Are you sure you’re not an investigative reporter? There are so many authors I enjoy but if I had to pick a favorite at gunpoint I’d probably say Dashiell Hammett.
11. What’s your favourite genre?
I’m pretty omnivorous when it comes to reading but I’d have to say that mystery is my favorite genre.
12. What’s next for you?
I’m currently working on a mystery about a female private detective who is trying to find a stolen – and very rare - first edition of ‘Bleak House’ by Charles Dickens. What makes the book rare is the fact that Dickens inscribed it with a note to a friend. My heroine is Siobhan Noguerra, the product of a Catalan father and an Irish mother who lost the lower half of her right leg while serving as a military policewoman in Afghanistan. I’m having a lot of fun writing it and hope to have it finished within the next couple of months.
13. What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
I was very fortunate in that I got my first job writing for a weekly newspaper in Ohio when I was still in high school. My editor was a woman named Alta Reigert and she told me that to be a good writer I first had to be a good reader. Her advice: Every day spend 30 minutes reading something that has nothing to do with your work. I’d give that same advice to anyone who wants to be a writer.
14. What’s your favourite movie?
This might sound a bit odd but my favorite movie is ‘Streets of Fire,’ although I do have a real soft spot for ‘Casablanca.’
15. If you were stranded on an island which three items could you not live without?
At last, an easy question: Books, paper and lots of sharp pencils.
16. If you could be born in another time when would you choose and why?
The latter half of the 19th Century because it was a time when so many interesting things were happening and there was a sense of optimism, a feeling that almost anything was possible. Labor movements were starting to gain strength, for example; writers like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were creating whole new genres of fiction; a new invention was being unveiled almost every other day; women were agitating for the right to be full members of society and people honestly believed that dreams could come true.
17. If you wrote an autobiography about yourself what would you call it?
I’d call it ‘No Fixed Address: The Life and Times of a Journalism Gypsy.’ As a reporter I worked at several different newspapers and wire services around the U.S. As a foreign correspondent I wrote stories from more than 30 countries.
18. What your guilty pleasure?
I once worked in Buffalo, NY where I became addicted to chicken wings and fried potato skins and I still am. I’ve been to therapy but it hasn’t helped...
19. What’s your favourite season and why?
It’s always been summer. When I was younger I loved summer because (a) I was on vacation from school, (b) I could play baseball and basketball all day, and (c) whenever I felt like it I could pack up a couple of sandwiches, grab a book and go find a nice shady spot to spend the day reading. Now that I’m getting close to 70 I like it because my joints seem to work better when it’s warm outside and, yeah, I can pack up a couple of sandwiches, grab a book and go find a nice shady spot to spend the day reading.
20. Do you have a nickname?
Yes, though it’s an odd one: Old friends still call me ‘Truck.’ It stems from my days as a football player when I once tackled someone so hard that when he got up a little shakily he said ‘I feel like I got hit by a truck.’ It stuck.
21. How do you handle writers block?
I don’t really get writer’s block. That’s probably because I was a reporter for so many years and often had to write three or four stories a day whether I felt inspired or not. These days, because I write my own books on my own schedule, I never really have a problem sitting down at the keyboard and writing for hours at a time.
22. What’s your favourite writing snack/ drink?
Coffee and – please don’t tell my doctor – chocolate chip cookies.
23. How do you cope with distractions?
I’m afraid I don’t cope with them all that well. Frankly, one of the reasons I moved to a small city in Spain a couple of years ago was because people kept dropping in on me once I retired from journalism. Invariably they’d stop by my little bungalow in Florida just when I was hitting my stride on one of my books. My choices: Invite them in or be really rude and tell them to go away. My mother was a Protestant minister and rudeness was not tolerated when I was growing up so, sigh, I always invited them in. Here in Reus I know very few people and I live in a nice apartment on the fifth floor of a building with no elevator so almost no one ever ‘drops in’ for a visit. That allows me to write for as long as I want and, for me, that’s the dictionary definition of heaven.
24. What would be your ideal holiday?
Downloading a bunch – a whole bunch – of new books onto my laptop and taking a week-long train ride from somewhere to anywhere. I love trains and reading and that would allow me to indulge both of those passions.
25. If you weren’t a writer what would your dream job be?
I can’t imagine not being a writer but, and this might sound even odder than some of my other answers, I’d probably have to say being in the military. I spent three years in the Army including two tours in Vietnam as a rifleman first and later as an advisor to a Vietnamese infantry regiment. I felt that what I did in the military was meaningful, that it had a purpose beyond just making a buck. I don’t see that same sense of purpose in many occupations.
26. Sweet or sour?
Bittersweet?
27. What three words best describe you?
Writer. Reader. Worker.
28. What’s your fondest childhood memory?
I’d have to say it was one summer’s day in 1965 when two of my brothers and I played pick-up basketball in Madison, Ohio and beat all comers. My brothers and I have never really gotten along but on that one day the three of us played together for several hours and it truly was a wonderful day.
29. Would you prefer a quiet night in or a night on the town?
I’ve always preferred a quiet night in.
30. What has been the best day of your life so far?
I’ve had many really great days in my life but the best one was when a judge in New York State approved my request to adopt my son. He has given me so much joy over the years that I can’t imagine my life without him.
31. If you could go back in time what one piece of advice would you give yourself?
I think I’d tell myself not to worry that I would never measure up to the expectations of others.
32. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
Probably volunteering for a second tour in Vietnam after being badly wounded at the end of my first tour. I had what I thought were then – and still do - good reasons for doing so but nobody I know thinks that was a good idea.
33. Do you believe in fate?
I don’t, actually. My sense is that we make our own lives, our own choices.
34. If you could be any animal in the world what would you be and why?
I’d be an elephant. The reason: I like the combination of courage and strength combined with the innate gentleness that elephants embody.
35. What was the last thing that made you cry?
A couple of days ago I was surfing YouTube and saw the X-Factor audition of a 42-year-old woman named Stacy Francis singing ‘Natural Woman.’ When she was introduced and told Simon Cowell that she ‘didn’t want to die with this music in me’ I have to admit I got a lump in my throat and then when I heard her sing I couldn’t help the tears from falling. So many people never follow their dreams and when someone does I find it very, very inspiring.
36. If you could have any super power what would it be and why?
That’s an easy one: I’d like to be able to fly because I love to travel and I really hate airports and all the folderol you have to do to get on an airplane these days.
37. If you only had one more day to live how would you spend it?
Writing. Most people would probably say they’d like to spend it with someone they love but I would never want to put my friends or family through the ordeal of watching me die.
38. For many of us writing is not our full time job, what is yours?
Actually, if you discount the three years I spent in the Army, writing has pretty much been my full-time occupation ever since I got my first job on a newspaper at 15.
