Mark Rubinstein Blog

Just another WordPress site

  • Home
  • Books
    • Mad Dog House
    • Love Gone Mad
    • The Foot Soldier
    • Mad Dog Justice
    • Return to Sandara
    • The Lovers’ Tango
  • Meet Mark
  • FAQS
  • News & Reviews
  • Media Room
  • Blog
  • Book Clubs
    • Mad Dog House Reading Group Guide
    • Love Gone Mad Reading Group Guide
    • The Foot Soldier Reading Group Guide
    • Mad Dog Justice Reading Group Guide
    • The Lovers’ Tango Reading Group Guide
  • Contact

A Conversation with Walter Mosley

July 17, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Walter Mosley was born in California. When he was 12 years old, his family moved from South Central to a more affluent West LA neighborhood. Although racial conflicts flared throughout Los Angeles at the time, his family was non-political. He later became more politicized and outspoken about racial inequality in the U.S., which continues to inform much of his fiction.

He earned a political science degree at Johnson State College, then abandoned a doctorate program in political theory and began working in computer programming. While working for Mobil Oil, and after being inspired by Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, he took a writing course at New York’s City College.

He began writing at 34 and has continued ever since, having penned fifty books in different fiction genres including mystery and Afrofuturist science fiction. He has also written non-fiction and plays.

In 1990, Devil in a Blue Dress was published, and featured the iconic character, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins. The book received a Shamus Award and was adapted into a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington, Jennifer Beals, Tom Sizesmore, Maurey Chaykin and Don Cheadle.

His works have been translated into 21 languages. He’s won many awards and has served on the board of directors of the National Book Awards.

You once said your writing imagination was due to ‘an emptiness in my childhood that I filled up with fantasies.’ Will you tell us more about that?

I was an only child. My mother was an only child and my father was an orphan. So, there was a lack of interaction between and among us. I was alone a lot. That being the case, I had to fill up time, so I made up stories. And I think that has stayed with me all these years.

Were your parents profound influences on you in relation to reading and storytelling?

My parents were extremely sophisticated. I was reading comic books and my father said to my mother, ‘He’s not reading. What’re we gonna do?’ My mother said, ‘The house is filled with books. You and I are always reading, so if there’s any possibility of him turning out to be a reader, he will be.’

That was the most they ever said about it. And it’s true: books were everywhere. I was looking at them, thinking about them, and I learned to revere them in certain ways.

I wasn’t told to read one book or another. My parents left it up to me to discover reading.

You once described your father as a deep thinker and storyteller, a ‘black Socrates.’ Will you elaborate a bit?

If you were poor and white, you might have claimed Socrates as an inspiration.

If you were poor and Chinese, maybe you would have said Confucius.

But if you were poor and black, there was nobody from your race you could claim.

Maybe you’d look up to someone, but that person wasn’t from your race or ethnicity.

 

My paternal grandfather was the only black man in New Iberia, Louisiana who could read. Everyone brought him their contracts, letters or whatever else required a written response.

My father, like his father and like Socrates, was first and foremost an educator. To me, my Dad was a ‘black Socrates.’

What inspired you to begin writing fiction?

I was in a Political Theory program at UMass Amherst. One day, I was sitting in class and listening to a revered professor of political theory—a man who studied Thucydides, the Greek historian, physician and general—and though I was really interested in the subject, I was incredibly bored by his lecture.

It was at that moment I realized I’d never be happy or truly successful as a teacher.

So I walked away from pursuing my doctorate, and went back to working in computer programming. Some years later, while still working in programming, I started to write.

You were thirty-four years old, and attended a writing course. I understand you were inspired by Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple.” What about the book inspired you?

I don’t know that I was inspired by The Color Purple, but when I read the book, I thought, ‘I could write like this.’ Not that I thought I was as good a writer as she was, but I knew I could use dialect and the black experience and make it into fiction.

I hadn’t had that realization before, even though I had read Richard Wright and other black writers.

I also read that a mentor at City College encouraged you by saying, ‘You’re Black, Jewish, with a poor upbringing: there are riches therein.’ How did that affect you?

That was Edna O’Brien. I think she’s the greatest living writer of English prose. She was teaching at City College.

Yes, she said that to me, but I already knew it. However, what Edna did do—which was much more important—one day, while reading something I had written, she said, ‘Walter, you should write a novel.’

I went, ‘Wow!’ This was Edna O’Brien, a brilliant person, who was also unbelievably beautiful. I would look at her and fall in love. And six weeks later, I’d written a novel—because Edna had told me to do it.

I don’t think she understood the impact she had on me.

Six weeks, first draft?

Yes, Gone Fishin’ was my first work of fiction.

Easy Rawlins is your most famous character. At the end of the 2007 novel “Blonde Faith,” you had him die. Or so it seemed. Will you talk about that?

I’d gotten to the end of the book. Easy was broken hearted and drunk, driving a car barefooted on the Pacific Coast Highway. He would pass cars and finally, he passed one. A truck was coming from the opposite direction and he was forced onto the shoulder. Then, the shoulder ended.

Now, I was simply writing this…I wasn’t really thinking. I was just writing. I wasn’t sure if I should have him go down the embankment. Then, I thought, ‘That’s what you wrote, you must have had a reason to write it, so leave it that way.’

And I did. I left it that he drove off the side of the mountain.

Now, it’s a first-person narrative, so obviously, he can’t be dead because in a first-person narrative, he’s telling the story to the reader. So, it’s impossible for him to be dead. But everybody else thought he was dead. That was fine with me because I didn’t know if I could write about Easy Rawlings anymore.

What made you feel you didn’t know if you could write anymore about Easy?

I couldn’t think of anything new, or anything different. Some years later, I realized the reason for that was I had been writing about my father and his world, but at that moment in time, I was entering my world. When I began writing from my own point of view, I could inform Easy from that perspective, and that’s when I wrote Little Green.

Yes, after “Blonde Faith,” you turned to writing novels about a New York-based private eye, Leonid McGill. But in 2013, you brought Easy Rawlins back in the novel “Little Green.” So, you rethought his disappearance?

Yes. I never thought of him as being dead.  As I said, in the first person, he knew he’d gone off the cliff.

So where was he for six years?  [Laughter]

He was nowhere.

I wasn’t writing about him for six years because I didn’t think I could. But then I realized,  I’d write about him  from my own vantage point.

I told myself, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’

So, I resumed writing about Easy Rawlins  in Little Green, which begins a few days after the accident in which he survived going down the embankment.

There have been debates in academic literary circles about whether your work should be considered ‘Jewish’ literature, or if you should be viewed as a ‘black’ author. What are your thoughts about being thus classified, and how do you view your work?

Well, let’s talk about generations.

My mother’s generation would say, ‘He’s a Jewish writer. He’s one of us.’

Their children would say, ‘Oh, Walter’s writing stories.’

Historically, the thing about being Jewish has been assimilation. You like to think of yourself as being part of the dominant culture. For example, you identify as being German because you were a heroic soldier in World War I. You think of yourself as a good German until the day you realize the dominant culture doesn’t want you anymore.

In America, you identify as being white. You think you’re assimilated until the day you’re not wanted because you’re a Jew.

A lot of people would say, ‘He’s not a Jewish writer.’ I mean, Philip Roth wrote a novel about a black university professor having sex with one of his students, and yet he was still Philip Roth, a Jewish writer.

Bernard Malamud wrote about Roy Hobbs in The Natural, but Roy Hobbs wasn’t Jewish.

So, the idea of excluding me from being a Jewish writer and just seeing me as a black writer, is an act of racism.

So obviously, you consider yourself simply a writer.

My mother’s Jewish, that means I’m Jewish. And so, I’m Jewish, and I’m a writer…so I’m a Jewish writer.

I’m also a black writer in America.

And beyond all that, I’m a writer. Period. The fact that people argue about it is wonderful. I enjoy that. [Laughter].

It’s nice to be argued about, isn’t it?

Absolutely. [More laughter].

You once said your first love is the genre of science fiction. What about it do you love so much?

It’s hard to say. It’s like being asked what you love about your children. Or, what do you love about the ocean? But science fiction is wonderful because it opens your imagination to all kinds of possibilities. Children’s stories are really science fiction or alternative fiction of some sort. I mean, think about Jack and the Beanstalk or Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh. They all involve an alternative reality.

Also, if you’re black in America, science fiction is one way to overcome your own history. If you write, ‘In 1832, there was a black president,’ that’s science fiction. It didn’t happen; but by writing that, you’ve created an alternative history which is science fiction.

I didn’t think about that element at the time I began reading science fiction, I just enjoyed the genre.

You’ve written stage plays in addition to novels. You’ve also written screenplays. How did you learn these crafts, and how do you approach them as compared to writing novels?

I could spend a long time talking about that. I’m not sure I studied the craft that much. To me, art is an unconscious activity. People’s desire to make it conscious baffles me. I don’t know much about the craft or how to consciously write these things. I’ve been teaching screenplay writing at Sundance for twenty years. Every time I teach, I expect they won’t ask me back. And then they call and ask me to come back to teach some more. If that’s what they want, okay, I’ll do it. [Laughter]. Each genre of writing has its own avenues and its own limitations. I like playing with that. It’s true about non-fiction, too. It’s really true about all art, and especially true about poetry.  I don’t think much about the craft or the means by which I write. I just write. It flows.

Speaking of poetry, David Mamet says rap music is the operative poetry of our time.

Mamet’s a brilliant guy and I really like him. Yes, rap music certainly has poetic elements in its use of language and cadence. So do pop songs. So does really good oration. It’s all over the place.

Is it true that you’ve written virtually every day since 1986?

Yeah.

You never take a day off?

Maybe if I have a plane trip, or if I’m sick. Before I came down here to meet you, I was writing.

What’s a typical writing day like for you?

I get up and I write for three hours. That’s it.

You’ve been outspoken about racism in the publishing industry. What do you think can be done about it?

The publishing industry has become more and more corporate. Everything it publishes—from children’s books to pornography—is catering to different types of readers: native Americans, so-called Hispanics, so-called black and white, and Asian people.

I think it would behoove publishers to have people from all these groups as editors—not necessarily editing just the books from their race or culture. To have a native American edit a book for, let’s say, Scandinavians, would be very interesting. I think the writers and the readers would learn something.

Art is unconscious, and so is racism. There are those people who are afraid of others whom they don’t understand. And there are people who think they are right because other people think like them. And there are people who think they’re smarter than those in another group.

One of the things I love about the Easy Rawlins character is that he sees racial issues even in their most subtle forms.

He has to deal with racism all the time. When the waitress at the diner is afraid to take his order, he has to deal with it. So, it becomes a very practical matter.

In his own mind, Easy always describes people he meets as having various shades and tones of skin color. He’s very aware of racial differences.

Yes, it’s done in very practical ways. He’ll think so-and-so has very good-looking skin. It’s white, or pink, or olive-colored, or black, or bronze, or shiny.

The idea of defining race by color is idiotic.

I don’t believe in the existence of a ‘white’ race. I mean, there are people we call white, but the differences between and among then can be startling: one person is tall and beefy, has pink skin and red hair and blue eyes, while another you’re calling white is short and thin, has ivory-toned skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes, with totally different features, and speaks a different language. What makes them the same?

I think the thing that makes them the ‘same’ was colonization. So-called white people came here and felt they had to kill the so-called red man, and enslave the so-called black men and women. So, the people who did the killing and enslaving decided they needed to have a color, too; and they became ‘white.’ If you call something white, it should be white, like the whites of your eyes, right? [Laughter]

Who are the authors you enjoy reading most these days?

They’re probably the same authors as years ago. I re-read books a lot. I reread Marquez all the time. Even though I don’t like his politics, I re-read Eliot. I read a lot of science fiction. I’m almost positive that other writers don’t influence me. I write about the world I experience.

If you could read any single novel again as though reading it for the first time, which one would it be and why?

It has to be The Stranger by Camus. It’s an extraordinary book that speaks so much to the modern world. It speaks to the issue of humanity which is dealing with our instincts and our passions.

What if anything keeps you awake at night?

Nothing. [Lots of laughter]. I think it’s because I’m old enough that I could have been dead for a long time by now. And, I live in America, and have my arms and legs. I’m in pretty good health. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ve had enough success. If there’s anything I could get upset about it pales in comparison to the troubles of people living in Mosul. It’s extraordinary to think about how lucky I am to have the life I have. Something really bad has to happen for me not to sleep.

So you don’t let ‘first world problems’ eat away at you?

I don’t let my ‘first world problems’ eat at me. I mean, 2.8 million people in America are in prison. Two million of those fall within the definition of people of color. Those people have trouble in the first world. If I was about to go to trial tomorrow for something that might send me to prison, I wouldn’t sleep tonight. [More laughter].

If you could host a dinner with any five people from history or contemporary times, living or dead, real or fictional, from any walk of life, who would they be?

I know a lot of people, some of whom are quite famous or very wealthy, and they’re much sought after.  But some of these people bore me, even though they’re smart and have accomplished great things.  I’m just not interested in what they have to say.

Would I want to have dinner with Abraham Lincoln?  If I said ‘yes’, maybe I’d regret it: he might be boring.

I know lots of people who’ve never done anything noteworthy, and I love spending time with them. I learn from them and enjoy their company.

So, I’ll pass on hosting your dinner party, and stick with inviting my friends.

What’s coming next from Walter Mosley?

I’ve written a book—not an Easy Rawlins novel—called Down the River Unto the Sea which is coming out in about nine months. I’ve written another book I’ve worked on for years about a deconstructionist historian. It’ll be published a few months after Down the River Unto the Sea; and I’ve written a children’s book for nine or ten-year olds called The Adventures of Renny a Little Brown Mouse.

Congratulations on such a diverse and successful career. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

 

 

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, crime, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: Art, being black, creativity, Edna O'Brien, identity, Jews, novels, poetry, race, success

‘The Nix,’ A Conversation with Nathan Hill

October 2, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Nathan Hill’s stories have appeared in various literary journals and he has won or been nominated for many prestigious prizes. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he has taught creative writing and liternathan-hill_cr-michael-lionstarature courses He has worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist, and holds a BA in English and Journalism from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

The Nix, his sprawling, multi-tiered debut novel, is ostensibly about a young English professor and failed writer, Samuel Anderson, who undertakes reconstructing the life of his mother who abandoned him when he was 11 years old.

But from the realm of disturbed family dynamics, to youthful friendship and romantic obsession; to the radical Sixties, to Norwegian ghosts, politics, video gaming, academia; to the Vietnam and Iraq wars; to secrets and lies, and to many other things, the novel is about much, much more. It examines the idea “the things you love the most will one day hurt you the worst.”the-nix

I understand between research and writing The Nix, it was ten years in the making. Tell us how it came to be what it is now.

I was doing some very poor work during the first couple of years writing it. I started the novel in 2004 as a young man straight out of an MFA program. I wanted to write something that would give me the kind of career I’d imagined for myself. I was writing crap. When you write to impress agents and editors, you’ll write bad prose. My writing didn’t have any personal human truths. I was rejected everywhere, as I should have been.

I floundered for a couple of years. I was doing research but was also trying to figure out what kind of book I wanted to write. I moved from New York and took a teaching job in Florida, having dropped out of the whole publishing query letter-writing scene. I was teaching and playing a lot of video games, and was sort of mentally marinating for a long time.

I then thought I’d missed my chance at being published, so I decided to take that anxiety about ‘blowing it’ and put it into the book. I included some experiences I was having teaching as well as with video games. When I decided to tell a true human story, the writing took off. I had to tear down my preconceived notions about what a successful writer should be and simply became the writer I needed to be.

It’s difficult to pick out my favorite sections of the novel, there were so many, but I absolutely loved the interplay between Samuel and his student, Laura Pottsdam. I know you spent years in academia, so tell us what Laura epitomizes.

When I was teaching, there were a lot of Laura Pottsdams in my classes. She’s an amalgam of some students I dealt with. While most college students are hard-working and want to learn, there’s a number of students who will plagiarize, cheat and not feel badly about it. They won’t do the reading, and have trouble paying attention to anything besides their phone, and will ask about the utility of what they’re learning. ‘Why do I need to know Hamlet in real life?’… questions like that.

Frequently, that attitude, combined with a sense of entitlement since they’re paying tuition and feel they deserve to get a great job, is reinforced by parents who will provide a last measure of self-defense when the students get into trouble. Just Google the term plagiarism epidemic and you’ll know exactly what I’m describing.

As often happens, when I write and spend enough time with a character, I began to ask myself questions about Laura, which in turn made me realize something was going on with my students that made them fundamentally different from the way I was in college. I realize the world has changed—drastically. My students grew up during the Great Recession. Teachers and parents tell them it’s a competitive marketplace, not only here, but worldwide. Corporations won’t look out for them. Students now are enormously anxious about getting a job and moving out of their parents’ homes. The assumptions I could make sixteen years ago—about finding a job and living independently—no longer hold.

Today’s students feel they need to excel in everything, so some of them cheat. Once I understood that, Laura Pottsdam became a more sympathetic character for me.

The Nix has a kaleidoscopically sweeping quality, zooming from 1968 to 2011, then back to 1944, and is told from multiple points of view. How did you manage to organize this wonderful sprawl?

My first draft was one-thousand and two pages long. [Laughter] I chipped away about four-hundred pages. It was so long because I gave myself permission to go down whatever rabbit hole or cul-de sac I imagined. I figured I might as well entertain myself in the writing of this book.

If I don’t ask you about one chapter, I’d be remiss. The Nix has a ten-page chapter that’s one-sentence long. Tell us about that.

I started writing that chapter as depicting the day Pwnage—the video game guru—would stop playing video games. Then, I started listing all the reasons he couldn’t stop playing. I read the rough draft to my wife who asked ‘Is this all one sentence?” It struck me that maybe it should be one sentence. I wanted to capture how time could slip away when you’re so engaged in something. Pwnage was feeling claustrophobic and anxious. At that point, the video game was the only thing giving his life meaning and substance. I wanted to textually replicate his anxiety in the reader.

Critics have likened The Nix to works by John Irving, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, Donna Tartt, Thomas Pynchon, among others. How does that make you feel?

[Laughter] Obviously, it makes me feel wonderful. How could I not feel great about it?

Does it make you feel burdened by expectations about whatever comes next?

I’m looking forward to getting back to the material for my second book. After all the attention this book is getting, I still have to go back and face a blank page. That blank page doesn’t give a damn what the New York Times said about me.

Yes, it’s gratifying people are saying such nice things about the book, but when I go back and start working again, I have to forget about the praise.

The Nix contains reflections on the misguided literary ambitions of a young man who wants to write for the prestige and social recognition it will get him. Will you talk about that?

Samuel wants to write because he thinks it’s going to make people like him. In college, I tried using my writing to impress women, and it’s shocking how poorly that worked. [Laughter] I tell my creative writing students to write because you need to. There should be something about the activity itself that’s valuable. Writing for recognition, ego, or praise guarantees you’ll write poor stuff.

In some ways, I think writing a novel should be like planting and tending a garden. People don’t keep a garden to get famous. A garden isn’t a failure if thousands of people don’t look at it. A gardener loves gardening because it brings a measure of joy. The writing of this book brought me a great deal of joy. If there’s humor in the book it’s because I think a pre-requisite for setting a scene is it must delight me in some way. I feel it’s a healthier way of writing than the way I approached it as a young man. Being published, I think, should be viewed as a side-effect of the writing.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about writing?

I once handed in a story in a creative writing class. The teacher looked at it and said, ‘You can do this, but you’re going to die soon, so you might as well write something that really matters.’ That was good advice. I think of that incident when I’m writing.

You’re hosting a dinner party and can invite any five people, real or fictional, living or dead. Who would they be?

That’s a cool question. I’d stick with writers and set up a literary salon. I’d invite Virginia Woolf, Donald Barthelme, David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin, and Gertrude Stein. I would just cook and listen. Now that would be a fun party!

 What’s coming next from Nathan Hill?

I’m working on a new novel. I have a premise and characters. I don’t as yet have a plot, but that will come. I’ll be writing about the things that interest me. Right now that happens to be marriage, authenticity, gentrification, and the nineties. We’ll see what that turns into. [Laughter]

Congratulations on penning The Nix, a soulful, hilarious, profoundly penetrating novel so brilliantly written, it took me on a head-spinning ride across a fantastic literary landscape.

Mark Rubinstein’s latest book is Bedlam’s Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope, a medical/psychiatric memoir.

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books Tagged With: 1968 Chicago riots, Afghanistan, creativity, Iraq War, John Irving, literary novels, mother-son relationships, Vietnam, writing

‘Out Of The Blues,’ A Conversation with Trudy Nan Boyce

March 1, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Trudy Nan Boyce received her Ph.D. in community counseling before becoming a police ofTrudy Nan Boyce, Photo, Viki Hoang Timianficer for the City of Atlanta. As a police officer for more than 30 years, she worked as a beat cop, homicide detective, senior hostage negotiator, and in the Special Victims Unit, among other assignments.

Out of the Blues, her debut novel, introduces newly minted homicide detective Sarah “Salt” Alt who on her first day in homicide, is assigned a cold-case murder of a blues musician whose death was first ruled an accidental drug overdose. Sarah’s investigation takes her to unanticipated encounters ranging from Atlanta’s homeless to its richest and most influential citizens.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, book launch Tagged With: Blues music, community, creativity, crime, police novels, Reading, writing

‘Find Her,’ A Conversation with Lisa Gardner

February 10, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

LisaGardner_cPhilbrickPhotographyLisa Gardner is one of the best-known names in all of thrillerdom. She’s received praise from Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, among many others. With more than 22 million books in print, she’s written an FBI profiler series; the Detective D.D. Warren series; and a number of standalone novels.

In Find Her, Flora Dane shares the protagonist role with Detective D.D. Warren. Some years earlier, while on Spring Break in Florida, Flora found herself waking up in a pinewood box.  In pain and disoriented, she began months of captivity at the hands of an abductor.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, book launch, creativity, crime, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, novel, On Writing Tagged With: creativity, crime-fiction, deadlines, FBI, fear, procrastination

What Acclaimed Writers Love About Writing

December 8, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Over the years, I’ve had the incredibly good fortune of interviewing many of the most widely-read novelists on the planet. I often (but not always) ask certain questions of each author. One of my favorites is: What do you love about the writing life?

Here are excerpted answers from some highly acclaimed writers.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Robert Crais: What I love about the writing life–despite the bad days when I have to force my way through–is when I’m there ‘in the moment,’ when what’s happening on the page is real and true and good; and I’m there with Elvis Cole or with Joe Pike or with Maggie and Scott, and I’m in complete touch with my emotions. That’s when things come together and may burst into something I hadn’t necessarily planned. There’s no better feeling. That’s what it’s all about. ~Talking about his novel, The Promise

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

 

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, On Writing Tagged With: creativity, satisfaction, writing

‘The Fraud,’ A Conversation with Brad Parks

July 14, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

BradParksAuthorPhotoBrad Parks is the only author to have won crime fiction’s Shames, Nero, and Lefty Awards. As in his five previous novels, his protagonist, Carter Ross, is an investigative reporter for Newark’s Eagle-Examiner.

In The Fraud, a rash of carjackings is terrorizing Newark. When one theft results in the murder of a banking executive, Ross begins investigating the case. He soon learns that a Nigerian immigrant was also killed in another carjacking only days apart from the executive’s murder. Carter discovers the two victims knew each other, and finds himself on the trail of a deadly band of car thieves. Nothing is really as it seems as the stakes rise, threatening Carter’s life and that of his unborn child.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, crime, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: carjacking. newspaper reporting, creativity, crime, Newark, NJ

“Endangered”: A Conversation with C.J. Box

March 9, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Box, C.J. credit Michael SmithC.J. Box is the bestselling author of 16 Joe Pickett novels, four standalone novels, and a collection of short stories called Shots Fired. He’s won multiple awards including the Edgar, the Anthony, the Gumshoe, and the Barry awards. He lives with his family outside Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Endangered begins with Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett learning his 18-year old adopted daughter, April, has disappeared. She’s found in a ditch along a highway. April, the victim of blunt force trauma, is in a coma. It’s uncertain if she will recover. Dallas Cates, the man April ran off with, denies any responsibility; and evidence begins pointing to another man. Joe cannot conceive of the danger he’s about to encounter as he tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to April.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

 

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, crime, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: creativity, crime, first drafts, Joseph Heller, revising, the west, Winston Churchill

Flesh and Blood: A Fascinating Talk with Patricia Cornwell

November 15, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-11-12-PatriciaCornwell-thumbPatricia Cornwell is the internationally bestselling and award-winning author of 33 books, the most famous and widely read being the 22 novels of the “Kay Scarpetta” series.

In Flesh and Blood, Kay Scarpetta notices seven shiny pennies, all dated 1981, placed on the wall behind her Cambridge house. She soon learns of a shooting death nearby, where copper fragments are the only evidence left at the crime scene. Scarpetta links the murder to two other deaths in which the victims were killed by a serial sniper. The victims had nothing in common, but seem to have a connection to Scarpetta herself.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, crime, doctor, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, medial thriller, novel, On Writing Tagged With: Agatha Christie, creativity, Dan Brown, Dickens, forensics, Harlan Coben, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Kay Scarpetta, Lee Child, Lincoln, Michael Connelly, Truman Capote

Strolling My Way To A Novel

May 2, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-04-30-Treadmillnobrand-thumbRecently, I read an article describing a study that confirmed something I’m quite certain I knew intuitively.

A Stanford University study indicated that walking on a treadmill at “an easy, self-selected pace” while facing a blank wall, helped generate sixty percent more innovative ideas when the subjects were tested psychologically for creative thinking. These results were reported to have applied to almost every student tested.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: creativity, doctor, health Tagged With: brain activity, creativity, ellipitcal, exercise, imagination, jogging, stream-of-consciousness, swimming, walking

Connect:

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on LinkedInFollow Us on GoodreadsFollow Us on Scribd

Recent Posts

  • Adrian McKinty Had Given Up On Writing: A Late Night Phone Call Changed Everything
  • David Morrell: Finding Inspiration, Transcending Genres, and Going the Distance
  • Don Winslow and the Making of a Drug War Epic
  • My talk with Lee Child about his “contract” with readers
  • C.J. Box on the Modern Western & Crime Thrillers

Archives

  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • February 2019
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012

Categories

  • About Books
  • Aging
  • Awards
  • book launch
  • bookstores
  • courtroom drama
  • creativity
  • crime
  • doctor
  • Dog Tales
  • health
  • Huffington Post Column
  • Interviews
  • library
  • Love Gone Mad
  • Mark Rubinstein
  • medial thriller
  • novel
  • On Writing
  • Podcast
  • psychological thriller
  • Psychology Today Columns
  • Reviews
  • The Foot Soldier
  • thriller
  • Uncategorized
  • war

Copyright © 2015 Mark Rubinstein