Gregory A. Fournier's Blog, page 60

Book Pimpin' Ain't Easy

As 2011 comes to a close, it has been an interesting year for me. In January, after the San Diego State University Writers' Conference, I decided to self-publish my first novel, Zug Island. Beginning in February, I contacted Wheatmark Publishing and entered into a Printing On Demand contract. By May, the cover design was agreed upon and the professional editing was complete. My novel was officially published in June and listed in the trade catalogues. That was the easy part.

Building an electronic platform, establishing a blog presence, and working with social sites like facebook and twitter began to take up more and more of my time. Time I could be using to work on my next book project, In the Shadow of the Water Tower.

Once that system was up and synergizing, I needed to do some advertising and personal appearances in San Diego and Detroit. I hired a local book publicist, Paula Margulies, and she arranged some publicity and book talks which occupied June, July, and August. In September, I did a few local library appearances and became part of San Diego Public Library's Local Authors Program for 2012.

In September, I also went to Los Angeles for an on-camera interview for GateKeepers Post, an online magazine. In October, Paula arranged a WDET - 101.9 FM NPR interview for me in Detroit. Then, on the heels of that, on November 1st, National Book Day, I won a Finalist's Award for 2011 in the USA Best Books competition, in the Fiction-Multicultural category.

Wow! It's been a productive year for me; I look forward to many more.

www.paulamargulies.com

In Town Again for Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel

I was delighted to learn that WDET - Detroit's Public Broadcasting Station, located on the campus of Wayne State University -  agreed to interview me about my debut book, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel.

The interview went well. Craig Fahle did a great job with a very touchy topic in the history of Detroit. How I did will have to be determined. The interview should air on Monday, November 14th at 10:45 AM, EDT.

The rest of my five day vacation was spent in Ypsilanti, Michigan, thirty miles west of Detroit. I was doing research on the "Co-Ed Killings of 1967-1969," which haunted Eastern Michigan University with a demonic horror for two years. My researcher, Ryan Place of Detroit, and I have made some interesting discoveries. My new book grows with every trip back to the area.

But alas! I flew back to San Diego on my birthday, to make it home in time to see my grandkids trick-or-treat. Couldn't miss that!

Then on November first, on National Book Day, I received notice that I am an Award-Winning Finalist for Zug Island in the multicultural category of the USA Best Books - 2011 Awards. Validation and recognition feels good.

Detroit Image Audio Collage

 
Detroit has always been a hard scrabble, two-fisted, beer drinking town. We all know the Motown musical legacy, but the Motor City has been cited in many songs and popular media over the last fifty years.

Enjoy this audio collage complied by Rob St. Mary, from the archives of WDET - 101.9 FM - Detroit's public radio station, located on the campus of Wayne State University. Each clip has helped define Detroit in one way or another, for good or bad. You be the judge!
 
http://www.wdet.org/news/story/DetroitImageCollage/

Good Memories of Detroit - Bob Seger

It's not easy being Detroit. After the glory "Arsenal of Democracy" days, this city began to decline.

After the 1967 riots, the city never recovered. There are many reasons and lots of blame to go around.

But there is another side of Detroit - a forward looking city - trying to heal itself and forge a new future from the ashes of its past.

Enjoy Bob Seger singing "Stranger in Town" with these archival photos of the Motor City in happier times for the people of Detroit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=MUvPUANJZrQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

New and Improved CPR Technique

Spend five minutes and learn how to save a life. This procedure does not require certification or mouth to mouth, and it has a higher success rate than the traditional method.
 

 http://medicine.arizona.edu/spotlight/learn-sarver-heart-centers-continuous-chest-compression-cpr

The Silent Killer - Heart Disease

Over the weekend, another former classmate of mine from the Class of "66" passed away from a heart attack. The sad news came on the heels of spending Sunday afternoon in the emergency room with a friend of mine who I hadn't seen or heard from in a couple of years. She called earlier in the day and was in the neighborhood, so she decided to drop by.

After about fifteen minutes of visiting, she started feeling faint and proceeded to develop chest and back pain, with labored breathing, sweating, and a tingling sensation in her extremities. While my wife who is a nurse took her blood pressure, I gave her two aspirins. Then the anxiety set in. That was enough for me - I called 911.

I live in a town with excellent emergency medical response services. Before I got off the phone with 911, I could hear the sirens roaring up my street. With suspected cases of heart attack, always call an ambulance rather than drive yourself or someone else to the hospital. An emergency medical team could be saving a life on the way over to the hospital.

My friend was held over night for observation in the hospital to check her blood enzymes, the tell-tale sign of a heart attack. All of her lab work came back negative. All she could do was apologize for ruining my Sunday afternoon and not waiting to see what happened before we'd called the paramedics, etc. That's crazy talk! Wait for what?

There must be something about October. Eleven years ago, almost to the day, I took a ride to the same hospital on a Saturday night. Actually, my date for the evening brought me there for a wonderful evening in the emergency room. Luckily, I got there in what doctors call "the golden hour." After a successful quadruple by-pass operation, I've been good to go for over ten years. Not everyone is fortunate enough to get a second chance at life.

My sincere sympathies go out to the family and friends of James Beebe, and to everyone who is grieving over the death of a loved one. Do your family a favor. If it has been over a year since your last physical, make a doctor's appointment. The life you save may be your own!


www.heart.org

Detroit Public Library - Main Branch

Before I left town on my last trip to Detroit, I made an unexpected stop at the Detroit Public Library on Woodward Avenue. Located across from the Detroit Institute of Arts. I had seen the main branch of the library many times from the steps of the museum, sometimes with students in tow and sometimes on family visits or with friends. This imposing building was constructed by the WPA during the Depression, in the neoclassical style, like many of the government buildings in Washington, DC and around the country.

After my book talks were finished for Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel, I had about a dozen or so surplus books I didn't want to take back on the plane to San Diego, so I went over to the library hoping to donate a couple books for their collection.

I explained my luggage situation, and the librarian at the fiction desk gladly accepted the books. I offered more, but she said maybe an autographed copy that the librarians could pass around would be fine. I walked out to my car, got another novel, and reentered to the library.

Seems in the short time it took me to walk out to my rental car, one of the other librarians walked by the fiction desk and saw my novel on the counter. She told the fiction librarian that she had just been reading about Zug Island on her computer, probably my website.

"The author was just here and he should be coming through the front door again any minute now," she was informed.

By the time I returned, there were four librarians waiting for me. They were all smiles as I greeted each of them. They wanted to know more about my book and why I wrote it. I went into auto-author mode and gave them a shortened and informal run through of my book talk.

When they asked me about my next writing project, I told them I was in town doing research on the John Norman Collins - Co-ed Killings of the late Sixties. They showed an avid interest in that subject. Only one of the ladies was old enough to remember these murders, so this topic seemed to fascinate the others, especially the brutality and cold case aspect of these serial killings.

I want to thank these librarians for their kind words of support and encouragement for my success. It was truly unexpected and appreciated. If that wasn't enough, ingrate that I am, I imposed on their time once again and asked if they might distribute my remaining ten copies of Zug Island to other branches in their library system. They happily agreed.

As it turned out, I had accumulated so much data and research for my next book, that I paid an extra $50 in overweight baggage charges to take it all home. But it was worth it. I got some great material.

Thanks again, ladies. Meeting and talking with you was one of the high points of my trip home.

Allen Park Historical Museum

One of the happiest surprises on my recent trip to Michigan was the discovery of the Allen Park Historical Museum, a converted farm house built in 1888, located on Park Ave. in a residential neighborhood. Most of the artifacts in the museum belonged to the family that originally lived there and are scattered around the house.

The museum is a work in progress. It needs some funding support and many volunteer hours to get this place into shape. They have a showcase filled with local police and firefighter memorabilia, there's some interesting military gear, some vintage clothing and furniture, and some rare children's toys  long unused.

The docent of this museum is the great granddaughter of the original builder of the house, who built it during the Victorian period. To give some historical context about the era, this farm house was built the same year as the Jack the Ripper killings in London's East End.

My family moved to Allen Park, a suburban community fifteen miles outside of Detroit, in 1962, the year I entered Allen Park High School as a sophomore. I only lived there for three and a half years before moving to Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor, yet I list this place as my hometown.

[image error] Recently, I've reacquainted myself with the city and some of my former high school classmates on Facebook and have enjoyed interacting with people I haven't seen or heard from in over forty-five years.

Life and time have separated us, but experience is bringing us back together. Many of us have become parents and are now grandparents; we have prepared, survived, and retired from our careers; and we now have time for other people and for ourselves.

We are lucky in our generation, which has seen more than its share of turbulent history, and we mourn for our family, friends, and colleagues who have passed into the great beyond. I find myself caring about people I barely knew back in the day, and that pleases me.

The Dutch Psychic - Peter Hurkos - Sounds Greek to Me!

I was just settling into an interview with someone who knew John Norman Collins. It was a late lunch meeting at Haabs, downtown Ypsilanti's oldest and finest restaurant. I overheard two women, sitting in a booth adjacent to us, talking in hushed tones about John Collins and those times. What a coincidence!

The restaurant was almost empty at 2:30 PM after the lunch crowd, so I interrupted them. "Ladies! I'm in town this week doing research and interviewing people for a book I'm writing about John Norman Collins."

Both ladies seemed to say in unison, "Really?" One of the women worked for the county police as a dispatcher at that time, and the other claimed to be a psychic.

"How amazing is this?" I said. "I just learned something new about Peter Hurkos, the Danish psychic, who was called onto the case by a citizens' group."

"He helped solve the Boston Strangler case," the psychic added.

"Not so much," I said. "He played a minor role in that case and parlayed it into a nightclub act in Los Angeles; then, he jumped into the co-ed killing media circus."

I didn't go into this with the ladies, but Hurkos also appeared in the disturbing Tony Curtis movie of The Boston Strangler, that John Collins was known to be obsessed with. Hurkos was to have a cameo role in the movie version of the Collins' killings, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, which began filming in 1969 but was never released.

"Here is what I found out," I continued. "A Mr. Allen, head of an Ann Arbor citizens' group offered Peter Hurkos $1,100 for expenses to come down from LA and look into this case. Hurkos asked for $2,500 plus expenses and was insulted when the group couldn't come up with more money. He decided to come down anyway because of all the potential free publicity generated from this case, especially if he got lucky and helped to solve it."

"The man had powers," the psychic insisted. "He was a painter and fell off a ladder and banged his head, or something like that, I don't remember. From then on, he could sense people and events from handling their things."

"Yes, I know. That was his claim to fame."

The police dispatcher added, "Yes, that's right. I remember Lt. William Mulholland, an investigator on the case, saying, "He (Hurkos) is making a believer out of me."

Well," I continued unabated, "do you know who the citizens' group was?" I gave the psychic another chance to divine the answer.

"Remember, John Sinclair? He was always in trouble with the Ann Arbor police."

"Yes, we do!"

"He and a bunch of his hippie followers were tired of the police harassment they were getting, so they offered to help, to show they were responsible, caring members of the community. One of their members said she thought there might be something cosmic or supernatural going on with this case, so why not try to get a psychic involved?"

"My, that is interesting," both women agreed. "Why do you think they did that?"

"My theory is they wanted to throw a wildcard into the mix and make the police look stupid. Soon afterwards, the Washtenaw County police were called the Keystone Kops by the Detroit Free Press."

"I remember how upset Sheriff Harvey was with that reporter," the former dispatcher said.

"He did take it personally," I agreed. "I also discovered that John Collins came into close contact with Hurkos, just before Hurkos left town for LA., and the psychic didn't have a clue. I got that from someone who was there with Collins."

I told the ladies the rest of the story, but that's all I'm prepared to tell you. I must save something for the book. Sorry!

Remembering The Michigan Murders

My main motivation for flying into Michigan last week was to interview half a dozen people who had first hand knowledge of and experience with John Norman Collins, the alleged Michigan Murders serial killer. It should be remembered that Collins was only convicted of one count of murder; that is what makes this case so enduring in the minds of people familiar with the facts. Once authorities had convicted their man in the Karen Sue Beineman murder, the murders of the other young women went into the cold case files.


My time in Ypsilanti was well-spent. I spoke with a woman who often rode on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle, while he and Collins toured the back country on lazy summer weekends, in an area where all of the young women's bodies were dumped. She left me with several important insights that I've not read about before.

Then there is the bike riding buddy, who went with John to "check out" Peter Hurkos, the Danish psychic called in on the case, at his hotel in Ann Arbor. I heard a great story from him, which I'm saving for my book, that I'm certain has never been told before.

I also heard a chilling tale of a young Eastern Michigan University woman who was fixed up on a double date with John Collins. Apparently, they were going to a campus frat party and Collins was withdrawn and sullen. I asked my source to describe her sorority sister: quiet and cute, short brunette hair, slight build, and recently pierced ears. She fit the profile of the murdered women to a tee. This may have been the woman John confessed to, that he didn't believe in the fifth commandment - Thou shall not kill. I am getting her contact information, so I can confirm that when I speak to her.

The next day, I was interviewing someone else over lunch, and I noticed two older ladies sitting adjacent to us in a booth at Haab's, Ypsilanti's oldest and finest restaurant. I overheard them talking about the John Collins case in hushed tones. What a coincidence! I couldn't believe my good fortune, but that will be another story for another post.