The Hot Author Report

Interview with Garasamo Maccagnone – Author of ‘For the Love of St. Nick’

Garasamo Maccagnone is the author of, “The Affliction of Dreams”, “The Suburban Dragon”, “St. John of the Midfield”, and “For the Love of St. Nick”. Maccagnone now lives in Shelby Township, Michigan with his wife Vicki and three children. You can visit Garasamo online at www.garasamomaccagnone.com.

Q: It’s rare today to find an author who does nothing but write for a living. Do you have a ‘real’ job other than writing, and if so, what is it? What are some other jobs you’ve had in your life? Have they influenced/inspired your writing?

I’m the type who needs to be working all the time. During the day, I’m involved, when there’s work, with a crating and packaging company. In the evenings, I run a 60-team soccer travel club that my daughter plays for. We have an indoor training facility that I help manage as well.

I’ve been a mailroom clerk, a janitor, an advertising coordinator, a copywriter, and a CEO and founder of my own Logistics firm. All the jobs I’ve held have influenced me a great deal. Writers are nothing but thieves, who steal stories, dialogue, scenes, ideas, and character development from anything or anyone who comes in contact with them.

Q: What compelled you to write your first book?

Since I was sixteen, and driven to write, the challenge to finish a book intrigued me. Being competitive, I found a way to make it happen.

Q: Have you always wanted to be a writer?

After reading “The Great Gatsby” in tenth grade I was hooked.

Q: Tell us briefly about your book.

It’s a simple story that involves two boys who have lost their mother and are worried they’ll lose their father after he leaves for a secret military mission. It takes place in an obscure northern Michigan town, where there is lots of snow and ice, and lots of hockey to be played.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

I’m writing a novel entitled, “The Fish and the Fox”. The story is set in Mcallen, Texas during the early 90’s and involves a Quixote like priest and his landscaper. The two get involved in trying to help the Mexican Nationals who are being smuggled across the border and being abused by the traffickers. Every week, the townsfolk, involved in profiteering from the drug trade, leave a shoebox of money at a parish door. They think of it as restitution for their sins. Though the recently transferred Father Charlie Dibbs is against the ritual, he learns to use the money to aid those in need. The story unfolds from there.

Q: How did you feel the day you held the copy of your first book in your hands?

I only get excited when a non-family member purchases my books.

Q: What type of music, if any, do you listen to while you write? Do you need the noise or the silence?

I write in silence, in my den, usually late at night, when it’s quiet and no one in the house is aware I may be working.

Q: If you could live in one of your books, which one would you live in?

Mario in “St. John of the Midfield” is a character very much like me. Though Mario is good, he struggles between the good and evil forces around him. Since I enjoy coaching soccer, that’s a book I wouldn’t mind living in.

Q: How do you balance out the writer’s life and the rest of life? Do you get up early? Stay up late? Ignore friends and family for certain periods of time?

I don’t sleep a lot. Most of my life I lived off of a maximum of 4 hours of sleep per night. I take a nap daily, which saves me and allows me to work through the evenings.

When writing, I usually tell my friends I’ll be away for a couple of months. They try to catch me at the local diners for lunch if they want to talk.

Q: The main characters of your stories – do you find that you put a little of yourself into each of them or do you create them to be completely different from you?

There’s always a part of you in every main character. All writers have to write about what they know about. Whose characteristics do you know better than your own? Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dickens, Poe, all siphoned off of their own personalities to create great leading characters.

Q: Is there an established writer you admire and emulate in your own writing? Do you have a writing mentor?

I like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s handling of, “The Great Gatsby”. Some of his other work I’ve been critical of. I have enjoyed some of Jim Harrison’s early work, though, in my mind, he became very predictable with his tone and the characters he chose to portray in his work. It’s like he had an agenda or was trying to make a political statement. Of course, that stuff never works.

Q: When they write your obituary, what do you hope they will say about your book/s and writing? What do you hope they will say about you?

The guy was solid – a great craftsman.

Q: Where you have lived and what you have experienced can influence your writing in many ways. Are there any specific locations or experiences that have popped up in your books?

I lived for awhile in a hunter’s cabin on the coast of Lake Huron. That’s where “For the Love of St. Nick”, takes place. It was a beautiful and simple time in my life and I tried to capture that sort of northern Michigan lifestyle by the quiet pace of the book.

Q: What is your writing space like? Do you have a designated space? What does it look like? On the couch, laptop, desk? Music? Lighting? Typing? Handwriting?

In earlier days, I used a word processor that I’d take up to a cabin I purchased at Lake Ogamaw. I had a balcony that faced the lake so I would start my mornings by writing as I peered above the majesty of the water and the shoreline. Today, I simply write in my den on Microsoft Word. I compose as I go.

Q: Is there anyone who has inspired, motivated, encouraged or supported your writing?

There’s a handful of peers, fans, instructors, and editors who always encourage me to write. I keep most of anything that I do in the literary world away from my family. My wife Vicki sometimes critiques my first drafts. She’s got an acid tongue and a red pen with too much ink inside of it. We always fight over the content.

In the early days, the real early days, I used to type manuscripts in our one-room apartment late through the night. She learned to sleep with the light on. She was always very supportive.

Q: Is there any particular book that, when you read it, you thought, “I wish I had written that!”?

No, I’m not much for envy. At the time, I’m reading, “A Confederacy of Dunces”, by John Kennedy Toole. I’m enjoying it a great deal.

Q: It’s one thing to write a book and another to edit it. How do you feel about the editing process? What was it like to edit your book?

Though I loathe the editing process, I realize it’s the most important process in getting the book right and professionally fit for one’s readership. The work is tedious yet essential. I’ve learned to deal with it.

Q: Now that you are a published author, does it feel differently than you had imagined?

There is no joy in writing until some person, unconnected to you or your family, decides to buy your work on the merit of your ability and craftsmanship. There are many avenues today to becoming published. In a way, anyone can do it. It’s only when someone I don’t know makes the decision to purchase one of my books that I get a little thrill. That means something to me.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

You can find poems, reviews, videos, and an occasional blog article by me at www.garasamomaccagnone.com Thank you.