7 Things You Don't Know About My Writing.

 I don’t usually like these things, but I enjoyed doing this one.

Here goes:

1) Every one of my books contains a reference to Motley Crue.

2) The color of my series character Maureen Coughlin’s hair is inspired by the Tori Amos song, “Cornflake Girl.”

3) I bury at least one movie quote/reference in each book as as Easter egg for my brother, John, who can have entire conversations in movie quotes. Movies referenced include FIGHT CLUB, STAR WARS, PULP FICTION, A FEW GOOD MEN, and TOP GUN.

4) The character Detective Christine Atkinson from the Maureen Coughlin books is named after one of my favorite authors, Kate Atkinson​. The ‘Christine’ and the her wardrobe (the cowboy boots, especially) come from the detective who helped me when I got mugged in New Orleans about 15 years ago.

5) I first realized I enjoyed writing in the third grade. I wrote my first novel, called THE LAKEVILLE TERROR, when I was 11. By hand. I sent it to Random House because they published my favorite series at the time, Walter Farley’s THE BLACK STALLION series. I got a really nice rejection letter.

6) I got the writing “bug” for good in high school, at a Saturday morning writing workshop at the New Dorp, Staten Island branch of the New York Public Library. The first stories I wrote for public consumption were written in that workshop. They were Westerns. They were terrible adaptations/rip-offs of the Indiana Jones character. I met my first girlfriend in that workshop. I’m guessing it was in spite of, not because of the Westerns. We’re still friends 30 (!) years later. Her name is…

7) The last morning writing I did was in that workshop. As an adult, I write almost exclusively between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am. Which is interesting, because for a few years there, those were the hours when I did the most damage to my brain cells - while listening to a lot of Motley Crue.