April 22nd, 2008 by zen2008

Q: How long did it take you to write THE MARK?
A: Just about nine months in total. Six for the first draft, then another 3 to edit the book.

Q: How did you decide on the names for the characters?
A: This is a question I’m asked surprisingly often, since the answer is “I made them all up.” With one notable exception. Choosing Henry’s name was very deliberate. I wanted my protagonist, a younger man, to have a name not possessed by many young men to illustrate the tension between his generation and that of Jack
O’Donnell. I’ve never met anyone under the age of forty named Henry; it just felt like the perfect name.

Q: Are there any plans to turn THE MARK into a movie?
A: There could be some film news in the works–stay tuned!

Q: Where did you get the idea for THE MARK?
A: I wrote a short essay about the inspiration for the plot, the characters and the setting which you can read here.

Q: When does your next novel come out?
A: The second Henry Parker novel, THE GUILTY, comes out in March, 2008. It was originally scheduled for January ‘08, but my publisher moved it back two
months (this is a good thing). My third novel, THE STOLEN, comes out just five months after THE GUILTY, in August 2008.

Q: Are your books available in audio or ebook?
A: THE MARK is available in both ebook and audiobook. You can buy the ebook from ereader.com or directly from MIRA. The audiobook is available at audible.com and on iTunes. I will update accordingly info when the next books are published and the formats are made available.

Q: How many books will be in the Henry Parker series?
A: I’m contracted through seven books, after that it depends on whether people still want to read about the characters. I hope they do!

Q: Are you related to Harold Pinter?
A: No.

Q: Seriously? Not even like fourth cousins or something?
A: No.

Q: Would you tell us if you were?
A: No.

Q: Are any characters in THE MARK based on people you know?
A: Nobody in THE MARK, or in future books, is based directly on someone I know or have met. Though I am guilty of taking some of the more amusing and peculiar traits from my friends and family and shamelessly giving them to inhabitants of my books.

Q: When do you write?
A: My favorite time to write is late at night, usually around 10 or 11pm. By that time I’ve washed the day off me, taken care of any personal and family matters, and can dissolve into my characters’ worlds. I don’t have a defined word count or time period to write in, I just write until I feel that the day’s work is done.

Q: In what order should your novels be read?
A: Well THE MARK is the only book I’ve written currently in stores…so…(of course I’ll update this as more books are released).

Q: Who are your influences as a writer?
A: I will go to my grave wishing I’d written MYSTIC RIVER, and I’d have to say if I could model my career after only one writer, it would be Dennis Lehane. He started out writing terrific genre stuff in the Kenzie/Gennaro novels, then wrote MYSTIC RIVER, a work of art that, in my opinion, stands up there with the best novels of the quarter century, genre be damned. Also Stephen King as far as his brilliant good vs. evil epics, countless hours of my childhood were spent with my nose stuck in between a King novel. There are two books I want to write at some point in my career: a crime novel with the searing emotional depth of MYSTIC RIVER, and an epic with a scope like THE STAND. At least I’m setting the bar high.

Q: If you could recommend one novel to a reader, what would it be?
A: How about a trio? I wholeheartedly recommend Charlie Huston’s Hank Thompson trilogy (CAUGHT STEALING, SIX BAD THINGS and A DANGEROUS MAN). The guy is just a brutal, brilliant writer.

Q: If you could recommend one book for an aspiring writer…
A: Let me stop you right there. ON WRITING by Stephen King. Other than the novels I grew up loving, this was the one book that made me want to stop dawdling and write my own. Insightful, honest, and inspirational. If after reading this book you aren’t inspired to go write your own stuff, you don’t want to be a writer.