Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I grew up outside Washington DC in Bethesda Maryland. After college, I went to fulfill a dream of living in Manhattan where I lasted for 5 years before moving to Athens, Greece, where I am based, as a former educator and now travel blog and book writer.
I have written and published two books, a book of poems and a fictional memoir.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is Step Lively: New York City Tales of Love and Change. It’s based on my years living in Manhattan in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was young and impressionable. It’s a story of young marriage and the challenges of living in New York City. The book is made up of 14 tales, told in various voices with quirky characters inhabiting the memoir. The tales have been written over the years from as early as the mid 80’s to last year. One of the tales, “Fingerprints,” was a winning short story in a contest that gave me a trip to Rome for two, for six days!
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t think this is so unusual, but I need an absolutely clean workspace around me with no clutter. This is a challenge for me as I am not a normally neat person. This is when I write using my computer. My other writing mode, which I do when I can, is to be outside with a pen and notebook.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
When I was younger I devoured all of John Steinbeck’s books and nearly cried when I realized I had read all of them. I think his humanitarian vision influenced me a lot. I also used to read a lot of D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce. But except for Joyce’s stories in Dubliners, his work leaves me a little cold. In the last few years I read all of Elena Ferrante’s Napolitan novels and totally loved them, especially her attention to detail, her characterization and of course her setting of Naples, which is practically a character in the books. I’m a big fan of Chekhov’s short stories. Also Hemingway’s. Other books I’ve read recently that I keep mulling over in my mind are the memoir “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” “The God of Small Things,” “Small Island,” “A Little Life” and “All the Light we cannot see.”
What are you working on now?
During the pandemic, I started writing my teaching memoirs (I was a high school teacher in Athens for 35 years). I dipped into lots of notebooks about classes and the setting where I taught and wrote a very rough draft. Now I’m going back and revising it and hope to finish it by the spring or summer.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
This is a difficult question to answer, as I feel like I am still new at this promotion game. I believe the author interviews or guest blogs are a good way to promote. I’ve had little success with getting reviews from book promotion sites. I’ve done some Amazon ads and kindle countdowns but it’s hard to see any relation with sales. Personal appeals to acquaintances seems to work best.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I’ve heard people say they have ideas for stories/novels in their head but don’t take the step of writing them down. If you don’t, you won’t be able to revise or edit! Don’t give up, writing is painful. If you have an idea to publish, you have to want it more than anything to go through not only the lonely writing itself but all the steps you need to do to make publishing a reality.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Concerning actual writing, especially for fiction and memoir writers, I like the way Chekhov expressed it: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
What are you reading now?
I just finished Daniel Mendelsohn’s “An Odyssey,” a beautiful and rich book on many levels, about not only teaching the Odyssey to his classics students, with his 81 year old father sitting in on his class, but most important, about the parallels of Homer’s epic with his own changing relationship with his father.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Besides my teaching memoirs, I’m working on essays about language learning and collecting together more recent poems.
What is your favorite book of all time?
I think I’d have to say “The Catcher in the Rye.” I used to reread it every year and it never failed to delight me, sadden me and move me.
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