It's Not Just Kids Who Take a Village

A Small Sacrifice had sold 22 copies when I heard it was nominated for a Shamus. Maybe I should make a better effort.

This new cover can’t hurt. The original wasn’t just not indicative of the story; it may have been actively misleading.

I’ll post some samples, tell some stories about how it came to be written, try to put together a blog tour and set up some interviews;  the agent may have a few things up his sleeve. A promotion. Hell, maybe I’ll even spend some money, get the word out.

What I need to do first is to thank some people. It’s customary to do this after an award has been won; my ego is not that large. (Lest my inner Donald Trump try to wrest control from my better judgment, the Montgomery County (MD) library system informed me that Grind Joint did not “meet [their] needs” on the same day the Shamus nomination was announced) I’m thanking them now because I don’t want the opportunity to pass. Award losers thank people for—what? Helping to write a book that didn’t win?

So, in no particular order:

The Writers of Chantilly, who were subjected to the entire book, a chapter or two at a time, while it was still in the sausage-making phase.

John McNally and the writers of Jenny McKean Moore writers’ workshop, Spring Semester of 2002. My submitted writing samples were from early drafts of this book. (Yes, it’s that old.) They helped me to decide what was important enough to tell, and how best to tell it. I stumbled across John’s notes to me yesterday, including a handwritten comment that mentioned the ending may be anticlimactic, wasting a good setup scene. The ending now is nothing like what he was given.

Charlie Schlueter, my trumpet teacher at New England Conservatory. There’s a blog post half-written about how the things Charlie taught me about trumpet playing transferred into other aspects of life, notably writing. I’m get it out over the next few weeks.

Pam Strickler, my first agent. Pam took the time to teach me what I might work on most in my craft: how to find the places where five words can do the work of seven.

Barbara Braun, my second agent, who almost sold A Small Sacrifice several years ago. There’s a decided change in the current version from what she first saw, as she taught me how to look for god in the machine while it was still under construction.

My daughter Rachel, aka The Sole Heir™. There are few things that happen with Nick and his daughter she and I didn’t do first. And more entertainingly.

Charlie Stella, the Godfather of Mob Fiction, without whom Grind Joint would not have been published. Without that validation, I doubt I would have submitted A Small Sacrifice for consideration.

Declan Burke, who talked me out of quitting several years ago—when no books would have been published—and gave me a nudge to look into what other things might fall my way after Grind Joint was well received.

Last, but not least, The Beloved Spouse. She wasn’t around when A Small Sacrifice was written—well, she was alive, just not around me, and, since I’m a guy, that’s all that matters—because she does things every day I should thank her for and don’t always remember to, she does them so often and effortlessly.

Jochem Vandersteen Discusses The Shamus Sampler 2 And More

Jochem Vandersteen is the creator and master of the Sons of Spade web site, dedicated to private investigator fiction. In addition to being a tireless seeker and promoter of new PI fiction, Jochem is no mean hand at it himself. His Noah Milano series, where the scion of a Mafia family addresses his mother’s dying wish to go straight, yet can’t quite get as clean as he’d like despite his best efforts, is as original an outlook as I’ve seen. His Mike Dalmas stories are great pulpy fun, and a new character, Lenny Parker, shows great promise.

Jochem has branched out into including other writers in anthologies of PI fiction. His most recent collection, The Shamus Sampler 2, launched last week. I can’t brag on it too much—I’m one of the contributing authors, and it would be indelicate of me—suffice to say it’s a solid and varied look at the genre. I read it over the weekend and can honestly say I am flattered to have been included.

Jochem took time from his busy schedule of being Jochem to answer some questions about himself, and The Shamus Sampler 2

One Bite at a Time: You’re Dutch, born and raised. How did you become so fascinated with American private eye fiction?

Jochem Vandersteen: I guess it all started seeing the Spenser For Hire TV show and finding a translation of a Spenser novel in the library the next day back when I was a kid. I loved the tough guy pairing of Spenser and Hawk and found his views of manhood inspirational. Several years later I became a fan of comics, horror, and sci-fi but when I walked into a bookstore at a train station I spotted a Spenser paperback, picked it up and got hooked again. From that I went looking for other PI books to read, having run out of Spensers and found out it wasn’t just the writing I liked but also definitely the genre. So I guess you can blame it all on the great Robert B. Parker.

OBAAT: Is there Dutch PI fiction, by which I mean stories about Dutch detectives set in The Netherlands?

JV: There is hardly any Dutch PI fiction. In reality we have some PIs working here, but the genre is not very popular here. Probably because PI’s here don’t carry a gun and thrillers focusing on female writers thrive much better here. That’s why I write in English.

OBAAT: How did the Sons of Spade blog get started?

JV: I figured it might serve to promote my debut novel, The White Knight Syndrome. I soon found out PI writers are a great bunch of guys always happy to do an interview and supply review copies. With all the sounds of the gene dying I started a personal crusade to get people to read more PI fiction.

OBAAT: Apart from Dashiell Hammett (obviously), who do you consider to be the pinnacle of the PI genre, both past and present?

JV: Of course you can’t beat Hammett or Chandler… But as you can see from the first question I really admire Robert B. Parker. He showed us that the PI can be a modern kind of guy and still be tough. Without him I just don’t think there would still be written as much PI fiction as there is now. His prose is always so lean and mean, his characters so lively… There might have come better writers in the genre after him, but no one has left a bigger mark.

OBAAT: What prompted you to branch out into editing anthologies?

JV: There are a lot of PI writers whose work deserves to be noted, but the old anthologies of the Private Eye Writers of America that I used to love don’t come out anymore. So I figured, why not try to publish a PI anthology myself?

OBAAT: How were the authors for the Shamus Sampler anthologies chosen?

JV: Some were old friends, some reacted to my call for submission. All know how to write a lean and mean story featuring private eyes.

OBAAT: What do you like best about putting the anthologies together?

JV: Discovering cool new authors.

OBAAT: What do you like least?

JV: Not much really. Getting people to read it sometimes feels like work a bit. I have to say my pals Keith Dixon and Sean Dexter have been a great help getting it all out in print. It would have been a much harder job without them.

OBAAT: You’ve established a considerable footprint in the world of PI fiction, as proven by your ability to get heavyweights such as Reed Farrel Coleman and Tim Hallinan to write the forewords of your collections. How does that feel?

JV: It feels so great to communicate with the writers I admire. Imagine an actor on a small stage show e-mailing with Robert DeNiro… The fact writers like Reed or Timothy Hallinan are willing to help me out shows me my work is appreciated.

OBAAT: Do you feel the blog and the anthologies compete for attention with your own fiction, or do they complement it?

JV: They complement it. More lovers of PI fiction mean more potential readers for me, so that means more reasons to write my own fiction. I do have to admit it becomes harder and harder to find the time with all these other doings.

OBAAT: Tell us a little about your own fiction.

JV: I write mostly PI fiction myself such as the Noah Milano series. That one focuses on the son of a mobster looking for redemption and working as a security specialist to find it. I also published some pulpy hardboiled action stories in the Mike Dalmas series and have dabbled in superhero fiction and some horror stuff. I also have a story by myself in the second Sampler, featuring roadie / PI Lenny Parker. Right now I’m working on a new series as well.

OBAAT: What’s next for you?

JV: I am currently writing the first in a new series of novellas featuring Vance Custer, a true crime writer who is willing to investigate your case… as long as he gets the book and movie rights.

Twenty Questions With Joshua Swainston

Joshua Swainston has worked as a mechanic, merchant sailor, courier, loan shark, club promoter, Ryder truck rental agent, McDonald’s grill cook, taxi driver, valet, coffee roaster, wine distributor, psychologist assistant, UPS man, Disney Store stock boy, and played Santa Claus. His short stories and flash fiction have appeared in A Twist of Noir, The Frist Line, Revolt Daily as well as other worthy web sites. You can keep up with him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheTacomaPillJunkies. His self-published novel, The Tacoma Pill Junkies, was released in February of 2013 and can be found at tacomapilljunkies.com.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

JS: The Tacoma Pill Junkies started as a short story about getting high. It was a way to reflect on those years when I was using. I had written a scene with just the main protagonist and his buddies smoking OxyCotin and bullshitting because that is what I had done for a time in my less responsible life. The characters developed past the confines of the scene and soon after I wrote in the love interest (Courtney Taylor) and the Tacoma Mall workers’ rights stuff.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write The Tacoma Pill Junkies, start to finish?

JS: Three years. But I didn’t set out to write a book originally, especially one that anyone else might read. It was mostly to humor myself. There was no urgency in getting it done.

OBAAT: What’s the back story on the main character or characters?

JS: Reno Walch is struggling working class. He’s a night janitor at the Tacoma mall, lives in a small apartment, and has very little in his refrigerator. What money he does make goes to getting high. Throughout the story Reno listens to NPR radio and does crossword puzzles, he does this in part because it is cheap entertainment.

OBAAT: In what time and place is The Tacoma Pill Junkies set? How important is the setting to the book as a whole?

JS: Tacoma is very important to me. It’s my home and I love it. It’s a real person’s existence in the middle of the lofty west coast.  Years ago when Tacoma was ravaged by gang activity and unemployment it used to resemble parts of what Detroit looks like now. In fact Harold Moss, a former Mayor of Tacoma, used to show pictures of Downtown Tacoma and pictures of bombed out Beirut, you couldn’t tell the difference. Since then it’s gotten better, T-town is pretty awesome with a growing arts community. Some locals try to forget the grittiness of the past. Others try to embrace.

The time period is roughly 2002. Oxys were still heavily prescribed without much regulation and the pharmaceutical companies hadn’t changed the formula to make them hard to smoke.

OBAAT: How did The Tacoma Pill Junkies come to be published?

JS: The Tacoma Pill Junkies is self-published because I didn’t know what else to do with it. I had written the book, then nothing. I felt like it needed a life. So I looked into self-publishing. I didn’t know what I was doing really, just leaped into it. The Christmas of 2012, I asked my entire family for money instead of gifts to help support my publishing efforts.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

JS: It seems like the stories I read the most are autobiographical fiction (fictional memoirs). I get this term from my wife who has her MLIS degree. The main writers I see on the bookshelf are Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Spaulding Gray, Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, William Burroughs, and David Sedaris.

But my all-time favorite books are, in order: 1)Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut  2)World War Z – Max Brooks  3) Geek Love – Katherine Dunn  4) Lost City of Z – David Grann  5) Lullaby – Chuck Palahniuk.  Notice how none of them fall into the autobiographical fiction category.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences?

JS: Spaulding Gray, Steve Martin, Mark Z Danielewski and Charles Bukowski. I also get moving after watching Wes Anderson or Spike Jones movies.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

JS: I do wear pants when I write. Normally loose fitting jeans.

I tend to only outline for the next few scenes, but little beyond that. I like to work my stories through my characters. They will write the stories themselves if I let them.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

JS: I go in cycles. I’ll write a bunch then get distracted. When I get back to writing, I’ll edit what I had done prior then pick up writing again. At the end I’ll edit and have other edit. Sometime after, I’ll edit again.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of advice, what would it be?

JS: Learn to love rejection letters, you will get many. I keep all of mine in a folder.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.

JS: Recently most of my free time I’ve been working on Creative Colloquy. It’s an online literary magazine for the Tacoma/South Sound Washington area. Www.creativecolloquy.com. I’m the current Editor-at-Large. The main function of the site is to fortify the writing community in the area.

OBAAT: Which do you take to bed at night, the money earned or the good review?

JS: The reviews from people who aren’t reviewers. Like when a friend’s wife or co-worker says they like a part in my book. It means I’m getting to real people. Recently I found that my book was listed on someone’s OK Cupid profile under Interests. That makes me happy.

OBAAT: Would you stop writing if someone paid you enough money so you’d never have to work again, on the condition you could also never write again?

JS: Maybe. I’m sure I can find a loophole. Like dictation, or build a hidden bunker somewhere where I could write in private. I’ve never been good a following rules.

OBAAT: If you were just starting out, which would you prefer: 1. Form your own indie publishing house and put your work out in paper and e-book yourself? 2. Go with a small or medium traditional house that offers very little or no advance, a royalty that is only a fraction of what you'd get on your own, and also makes no promise of any type of publicity push, keeping in mind that you also will lose the publishing rights for a period, sometimes indefinitely? 3. Go with a Big Six or legacy publisher that offers a larger advance, legitimate review possibilities, entrance to industry literary awards, and exposure on the shelves of brick and mortar stores. Pick one and say why.

JS: I think the majority of writers would love to go with the Big 6 so that we could be financially stable enough to write all the time without distraction. That being said, I like the niche I’ve found with indie self-publishing. It isn’t always ideal, there is still a stigma over self-publishing, and there is no money in it. But the people are genuine, you can get a real connection to the small audience you build by yourself. You can talk to the reader and find out about them, why they would ever pick up a story about working class pharmaceutical addicts. You meet other writers self-publishing and you make friends, build connections. I’m not looking to get rich from writing. Of course the Big 6 would provide a broader audience, but I’d be less accessible to them.

OBAAT: Beer, mixed drinks, or hard liquor?

JS: Newcastle Brown Ale

OBAAT: Baseball or football?

JS: Baseball – See Gorge Carlin or the opening monologue in Bull Durham by Susan Sarandon.

OBAAT: What question have you always wanted an interviewer to ask, but they never do?

JS: No one ever asks, “Have you stopped taking drugs? And why?” I think there is a social hold over from the Nancy Regan era where we don’t talk about the social issues surrounding drug use on a personal level. Either the reader assumes I’m still out there smoking pills or they think I’m like Tom Wolfe, where I write about it as an observer, but is really just a pussy.

OBAAT: What’s the answer?

JS: Yes I’ve stopped. 50% due to work urinary analysis. 25% due to my family. 25% because all the guys I used to run with are in jail or totally nuts.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

JS: I’m the Editor-at-Large for Creative Colloquy (www.creativecolloquy.com). I’ve been writing a bunch of crime genre shorts, I plan on continuing this. The next book is going to be about my first deep sea sailing experience, I was a merchant mariner (sailor) for 10 years. I’m also considering putting together a collection of short stories. So lots of things up in the air right now, lots of projects. It’s an exciting time.

The Tacoma Pill Junkies is available through Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

The Shamus Sampler II Is Now Available

Indefatigable promoter of PI fiction and friend of the blog Jochem Vandersteen has done it again. Literally. Following up on the success of last year’s The Shamus Sampler (a collection of PI shorts, foreword by Reed Farrel Coleman), Jochem and his Sons of Spade blog have released The Shamus Sampler II. (Anyone interested in what’s going on with PI fiction right now needs to keep an eye on SOS.)

This is a first class e-book, from the excellent cover by Keith Dixon through the foreword by Timothy Hallinan (author of the Poke Rafferty thrillers and Junior Bender series) and the (mostly) solid assemblage of authors: Nick Andreychuk, Michael W. Clark, Peter DeChellis, Michael Koenig, Nick Quantrill, Graham Smith, Ben Solomon, Gareth Spark, Phillip Thompson, Mark Troy, Will Viharo, and Jochem himself. I even managed to sneak in a Nick Forte story while the Quality Control folks weren’t looking.

The Shamus Sampler II is available for Kindle for the ridiculously low price of $2.99. That’s a mere 23 cents a story. (Twenty-one cents if you include the foreword, which you should, because it’s really good.) Buying a copy is like stealing, without the potential downside of spending five years pondering your life errors as Big Bubba’s Bathroom Bitch.

May's Best Reads

Junkyard Dogs, Craig Johnson. I’ve been a fan of the Longmire TV show since it came on, and finally gave one of Johnson’s books a try. Liked it even more than the show, by a comfortable margin. The books are wittier, far more “novels with crime” than “crime novels.” In Junkyard Dogs the real crime doesn’t appear until about halfway through, though there are other things that could be crimes, depending on context. The book also has a much quirkier world than the show, though the quirks that make it work best may have been difficult to fit into one-hour episodes, and may not have played well with a network that wants as broad an appeal as possible. Nothing offensive, but Johnson finds humor in an elderly man being dragged behind a car, and makes it funny to the reader. Not everyone can do that. The story comes down to a rich developer who wants more land to develop. I mentioned it last because the premise is nothing you haven’t seen before, but the telling is. Johnson is in my rotation now; highly recommended.

The Sentry, Robert Crais. I like Crais’s Elvis Cole novels better than his standalones. The strengths of his writing style seem better suited to Elvis’s wisecracking than to third-person looks into other peoples’ minds. The books where Elvis’s sidekick, Joe Pike, plays the lead—of which The Sentry is one—are a little of each. Third person, but Cole plays an important role, so the world view has a bit of his leavening perspective. Here Pike becomes involved with a woman and her uncle when, acting as a Good Samaritan, he intervenes in a beat down in the uncle’s restaurant. Things are not as they seem, with Pike and Cole soon find themselves involved with a truly psycho hit man, drug cartels, cops, feds, and what may be feds, or not. Crais’s deft timing and innate knowledge of how long to stay with a scene are, as always, well used. No one writes ending shoot outs better.

The Generals, Thomas Ricks. Good, if uneven. The acknowledgements cite how many people had how much input at various points and drafts, which explains why the book sometimes feels as though it were written by a committee. The analysis of World War II and Korean War generals was excellent and informative, digging well beneath most histories. (Talk about the Forgotten War: Ricks’s description of how the generals handled the Battle of Chosin Reservoir has me looking for a good history of the “police action.”) Lots of good information from Vietnam, including horrifying details not commonly known about My Lai and the cover-up. The book seems to lose focus after that, using examples from both (so far) Iraq wars and Afghanistan to show how the Army has drifted from George Marshall’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s policy of “quick relief” when commanders don’t measure up, though he also seems to take it to some rigid extremes, as when he chides Norman Schwartzkopf for not removing a commander who didn’t move as quickly as Schwartzkopf wanted; the whole ground war lasted only four days. Quick relief is one thing, but damn. (Not that Ricks doesn’t point out several more valid examples of where Schwartzkopf should have done better.) Somewhat inelegant writing aside, this is a thought-provoking and well-documented examination of the caliber of American military leadership, its focus on tactics over strategy, and why we don’t seem to be able to end wars well anymore.

The Shield

On May 23, The Beloved Spouse and I celebrated the tenth anniversary of our first date. Went to Famous Dave’s and sat as close to our original booth as we could; ordered the same meals. (We eat pretty much the same thing every time we go there, so it’s not as nauseatingly romantic as it sounds.) We then went home and kept each other up until quarter to three Saturday morning.

Binge watching the last ten episodes of The Shield.

People have been after me to watch The Shield well before it went off the air in 2008. You know me: I had other things to do, and the other commercial TV shows that had been recommended around that time hadn’t panned out. Still, The Shield persistently worked its way to the top the Netflix queue, visible every time I went in there. When All is Lost included our interest a couple of months ago and we were experimenting with a trial subscription to Amazon Prime, our Saturday evening became free and we figured what the hell.

We were hooked after the first episode.

I had for years considered The Wire to be the zenith of television, even better than The Sopranos. (Deadwood is such an outlier in so many ways it’s impossible to make apples-to-apples comparisons.) Now I’m not so sure. The Shield takes advantage of a somewhat smaller cast contained in a smaller container to show character relationships evolve and fold back over each other. The plotting is tighter and the timing is perfect. Every season Vic Mackey and the Strike Team evade ever more serious problems. Then, just about the time one wonders how many times creator Shawn Ryan can make this believable, he wrapped it up with what I believe is the finest closing episode I’ve seen, true to the tone established over seven years, and containing the quality all good endings have: initial surprise, followed by a sense of inevitability. David Chase should have seen the end of The Shield before he copped out with his ending of The Sopranos.

The writing is spot on. Each episode has a minor plot or two that unfolds under the overarching story of the season. Some resolve in a week, some take longer, and some seem to be resolved, only to appear several weeks (or even seasons) later. The Shield is a perfect example of the kind of fiction I love, storytelling in a “keep up or catch up” style that rewards the engaged viewer. What seemed to me at first to be a plot hole late in Season Five was exploited as a key clue early in Season Six. Pay attention folks; we’re going to ask questions later.

The acting is uniformly excellent. The only actor I’d heard of before this was star Michael Chiklis, whom I’d seen in a couple of network series I hadn’t cared for. I can’t say what his range is, but he was perfectly cast as Vic Mackey. Walton Goggins—better known today as Boyd Crowder on Justified—plays Shane Vendrell, Vic’s primary sidekick who’s not as smart or brave as Vic, but is willing to be just as ruthless, and has a tendency to project what he would do onto others, a dangerous combination in a character and a tricky performance to pull off, which Goggins does to perfection. I could go on like this for a while, but suffice to say all the actors are well cast and excellent, from series regulars to one-week, two-minute appearances.

What makes The Shield work best is its guerilla style of filming. Few sets were built, and quite a few scenes are filmed without getting clearances. When it appears Vic is taking his life in his hands chasing someone across a busy street, that may well not be controlled traffic Chikilis—and the cameraman—are running through. Shot exclusively with hands-helds and Stedicams—Ryan in one special feature seems proud of the fact the show never owned a camera dolly—the documentary feel is accentuated by the actors often having no precise marks to hit; the cameras keep up as well as they can, sometimes shifting to a speaker after he or she has begun the line. It keeps things edgy and forces the audience to remain in the moment. How can we know what to expect next when our eye into that world isn’t even sure?

This may have affected TBS and I more than some because we were able to watch the entire series without commercial or season interruptions; I bought the complete boxed set in the middle of Season Two, when I knew Netflix wouldn’t be able to keep up with us. We’re still wound up, so much so we re-watched the final episodes of Seasons Five and Seven Monday night. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about The Shield as time goes on. Suffice to say if you share my perspective on this kind of story and its telling—if you’re reading this, you probably do—The Shield is not to be missed.

Twenty Questions With Tom Pitts

Tom Pitts received his education on the streets of San Francisco, though not from either Karl Malden or Michael Douglas. He remains there, working, writing, and trying to survive. His new novel, Hustle, was recently released by Snubnose Press. Tom also has a novella, Piggyback, to his credit, and more short stories than you can shake a stick at, published by such respected and varied outlets as Crime Factory, All Due Respect, Shotgun Honey, Powder Burn Flash, and others my typing skills and time available do not permit me to mention; check his web site and blog for details.

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about Hustle.

Tom Pitts: It’s funny, I had a friend who is struggling with addiction mention he hadn’t yet read the book and I told him, “When you’re ready to relapse, buy Hustle. It’s like a passport to all your dark places.” It’s a story that beings with two drug-addicted gay hustlers trying to blackmail an elderly client of theirs. Only it’s the wrong client. Somebody else already has their hooks in this bastard for something much bigger.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

TP: It started as a short story idea. I wanted to write something in third person with the narration sounding like first person. When I hit page five I realized it was going to go much further than a few thousand words.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write Hustle, start to finish?

TP: The first few pages sat for a while—they needed to gestate—but once the ball got rolling it took about four months. I was on a roll. I’d be lucky if they all came that easy.

OBAAT: What’s the back story on the main character or characters?

TP: I’ve already mentioned the hustlers, the man they try to extort is a powerful San Francisco attorney named Gabriel Thaxton. Problem is, Gabriel has a history of being involved with young men, and one of those young men is a psychopath named Dustin who is living in his mansion and already working his own kind of evil on the old man. The hero of the book, though, is the lonely old biker Gabriel taps to help him out of the mess. Bear is a biker who’s always been on the fringe of the big clubs. He and Gabriel have done business in the past, so he feels he owes the old guy. But, in returning the favor, he gets sucked into the cyclone of violence.

OBAAT: In what time and place is Hustle set? How important is the setting to the book as a whole?

TP: The time is the present. Smartphones and YouTube play a role. I wanted something current. The place? San Francisco. There are parts set in Marin County because it’s wealthy and isolated out there—good for the ol’ shootout at the OK corral thing—but most of it takes place in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Why? Two reasons: The first is because I know SF the best. I’ve been here thirty years and have lived all over the city. All my jobs, from bike messenger to taxi driver to dispatcher, have all been related directly to the streets of the city. But mostly it’s in San Francisco because the theme, gay hustling and drug addiction, seemed very SF-centric to me. And in San Francisco, no neighborhood is sleazier than the Tenderloin.

OBAAT: How did Hustle come to be published?

TP: Initially, Brian [Lindenmuth] at Snubnose said he’d be interested in publishing the book. He was one of the first to read it. Then, with Hustle in tow, I landed an agent, but after the first few rejections, it became clear that a big house taking such an unsavory story would be unlikely. My agent already had my next novel in hand, ready to shop, so I decided to seek out Snubnose again and ask Brian if he was still interested. Snubnose had been very good to me with my first novella, Piggyback, and I like being with them, they’ve got a great roster and a good rep.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

TP: I like crime stories, and a sprinkling of the greats. I haven’t been reading enough out of the crime genre lately. I love Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck, Don DeLillo, James Lee Burke, Denis Johnson. The kind of guys that you read and think, fuck it, I’ll never be that good in a thousand years. I always feel under-read, I’m always up for discovering some new.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences?

TP: Like it or not, Elmore Leonard influences me most. I’d like to be influenced style-wise by all sorts of big shots and mega-talents, but the lean and direct Leonard is what I find myself drawn to when it comes to telling a story on my own.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of your pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

TP:  Seat of my pants, baby. And, yes, it’s San Francisco, so that’d be long pants.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

TP:  I push forward through a scene at a time. Even though I may only get 4 days a week in, I shoot for a thousand words a day. But it’s the scene that dictates how far I go, much more than the word count. If I’m stuck, I’ll go over the previous day’s work and revise it. That happens a lot, so I’m a bit of a revise-as-you-go kind of guy.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of advice, what would it be?

TP: Clarity. It sounds simple, but the job of a writer is to get readers to see what you see in your head. Keep it simple, make it clear.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.

TP: That’d be family time. Whatever we manage to do, I have fun doing it—even if they’re hating it!

OBAAT: Which do you take to bed at night, the money earned or the good review?

TP: It’d have to be the good review, ’cause there ain’t no money being earned! Not real money anyway. I don’t think I could live a week on what writing brought in last year.

OBAAT: Would you stop writing if someone paid you enough money so you’d never have to work again, on the condition you could also never write again?

TP: Is someone making that offer? Do I get to squander the cash by jumping into the movie business? I’d have to read the fine print and check for loopholes.

OBAAT: If you were just starting out, which would you prefer: 1. Form your own indie publishing house and put your work out in paper and e-book yourself? 2. Go with a small or medium traditional house that offers very little or no advance, a royalty that is only a fraction of what you'd get on your own, and also makes no promise of any type of publicity push, keeping in mind that you also will lose the publishing rights for a period, sometimes indefinitely? 3. Go with a Big Six or legacy publisher that offers a larger advance, legitimate review possibilities, entrance to industry literary awards, and exposure on the shelves of brick and mortar stores. Pick one and say why.

TP: I guess number three, but it’s a trick question. Number two often offers better royalties than anyone in the game. There is also an ability to have a say in the final product with number two that you sign away with number three. Also, number three is a gamble. Little fish/big pond syndrome. Not to mention they call them advances for a reason. I learned this in the music business. Sure, you get that first check, but for the big guys to admit turning a profit and coughing up any more dough is another matter. That’s been my experience anyway, but keep in mind that I work for Gutter Books and I’m a Snubnose Press author.

OBAAT: Beer, mixed drinks, or hard liquor?

TP: This week? Beer.

OBAAT: Baseball or football?

TP: Baseball. I live in Giants country. I actually penned a novella that‘s centered around a three-game series between the Dodgers and Giants. It’s a crime tale, but it’s very baseball-centric. What’s that I hear you asking? What’s my favorite baseball book? Why, Pafko at the Wall by Don DeLillo, of course.

OBAAT: What question have you always wanted an interviewer to ask, but they never do?

TP: Um … how does it feel to be nominated for the National Book Award?

OBAAT: What’s the answer?

TP: Sadly, I was once again overlooked. Thank you for asking, though.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

TP: My novel California Libertine is being shopped to the big boys, so while I wait for rejections I’ve started a new book—as yet untitled. It’s morphing as I go. It’s not the novel I set out to write, it’s quickly turning into something better, letting me ask my favorite question: I wonder what is going to happen today? For me, that’s still the best part about writing.