General Fiction
Date Published: November 2, 2011
2014 FIRST PLACE WINNER for GENERAL FICTION - KINDLE BOOK PROMO / LUCKYCINDA INTERNATIONAL BOOK CONTEST.
What if the cavalier decision you made about your child the day she was born had the power to reverberate for more than thirty years, dividing the nation, costing three people their lives, and destroying your family?
Homeless teen Allison Fitzgerald believes the two tiny membranes on her baby’s back are not, as the doctors claim, a surgically correctable birth defect, but a pair of wings. And after having a vision of her child flying, she names her Angel.
The “wings” will never flap, fly or lift the child off the ground, but they will engender in Angel a dangerous obsession with flying, an obsession that will one day drive her to attempt the impossible.
A darkly comic contemporary reframing of the Icarus and Daedalus myth, WINGED ex-plores the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her child, and ultimately offers a message of salvation, not just for the family involved, but for all mankind.
#1 – Do You See Writing as a Career?
Since
writing seems to be the only skill I was born with, it's either that or
panhandling. I started writing radio and TV commercials in college, became
an advertising copywriter, then headed to Hollywood where I wrote mostly
sitcoms, starting out on Mork & Mindy and finishing up on Boy Meets World. Novel seems like the next logical step.
#2 – What was the Hardest Part of Your Writing Process?
I'm
one of those "total immersion" writers, so the hardest part for me is
remembering to stop once in a while to eat or sleep. My schedule is flexible, so if I'm in the mood to
write all night and sleep the next day, nobody has a problem with it.
#3 – Did you have any One Person Who Helped You Out with
Your Writing Outside of Your Family?
No
one person helped me with my writing, but a stellar array of brilliant authors
influenced and inspired me. Vonnegut for his tight, clean style; Nabokov for
delicious wordplay and complex construction; James Joyce, who wrote one line in
Ulysses that had the power to change my life; Dorothy Dunnett for the most
interesting, convoluted plotting I have ever read; Thorne Smith for
delightfully screwball comedies that Hollywood kept making into movies but
could never quite get it right.
#4 – What is next for your writing?
I'm sending a book of short stories to a publisher this month
and as soon as the manuscript is off, I'll toss a coin to find out if I'll
immediately move on to my next literary fiction or write a stand-alone, comedic
P.I. novel.
#5 – Do you have an addiction to reading as well as writing?
If so, what are you currently reading?
I've
been a reader since the age of three, although my taste in books has gotten a
bit more sophisticated since then. I set a goal ten years to read every Pulitzer Prize winner
for fiction that's been published since the contest's inception in 1918, and
I'm about 95% there. Unfortunately, when I'm actively writing I'm also consumed
by the process, so reading takes a back seat until I'm at least through my
first draft. As soon as I send outThe
Last First Kiss, I'll dive into
the copy of Danna Tartt's The Goldfinch,
which has been awaiting my attention for seven months.
I was born on Long Island to military parents who would have much preferred a new dining room set. After a peripatetic childhood I did hard time at the University of South Florida before moving to Los Angeles to be either a stand-up comic or a writer.
Since writing paid actual money while doing stand-up did not, I signed onto the original writing staff of MORK AND MINDY, leaving two seasons later after having written 15 of the initial 52 episodes, one of which was a finalist for the Humanitas Prize.
I then relocated to New York to write and produce the premier season of LOVE, SIDNEY, starring Tony Randall and Swoosie Kurtz, the first prime-time comedy featuring an openly gay lead character (many years before WILL AND GRACE) and the show for which I received my second Emmy nomination.
Back to the west coast, I wrote and produced series such as 9 to 5 (the TV version of the feature film), TEACHERS ONLY, starring Lynn Redgrave, and WEBSTER, before co-creating the first half-hour comedy specifically made for cable, SANCHEZ OF BEL AIR.
From 1987 to 1991 I stopped doing TV staff work so I could take a four-year course at the oldest homeopathic medical school in England. During that time I worked strictly freelance, supporting myself by writing made-for-television movies and mini-series.
After graduating from The College of Homeopathy in London, I returned to television, co-creating the series BOY MEETS WORLD which ran on ABC from 1993 to 2000. The remake, GIRL MEETS WORLD, is running on the Disney Channel right now.
In 2000 I moved to a farm in Tennessee, where I now write less soul-sucking material than TV scripts. I have two dogs who stay with me more from Stockholm syndrome than any genuine feeling of affection.
General Fiction
Date Published: November 2, 2011
2014 FIRST PLACE WINNER for GENERAL FICTION - KINDLE BOOK PROMO / LUCKYCINDA INTERNATIONAL BOOK CONTEST.
What if the cavalier decision you made about your child the day she was born had the power to reverberate for more than thirty years, dividing the nation, costing three people their lives, and destroying your family?
Homeless teen Allison Fitzgerald believes the two tiny membranes on her baby’s back are not, as the doctors claim, a surgically correctable birth defect, but a pair of wings. And after having a vision of her child flying, she names her Angel.
The “wings” will never flap, fly or lift the child off the ground, but they will engender in Angel a dangerous obsession with flying, an obsession that will one day drive her to attempt the impossible.
A darkly comic contemporary reframing of the Icarus and Daedalus myth, WINGED ex-plores the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her child, and ultimately offers a message of salvation, not just for the family involved, but for all mankind.
What if the cavalier decision you made about your child the day she was born had the power to reverberate for more than thirty years, dividing the nation, costing three people their lives, and destroying your family?
Homeless teen Allison Fitzgerald believes the two tiny membranes on her baby’s back are not, as the doctors claim, a surgically correctable birth defect, but a pair of wings. And after having a vision of her child flying, she names her Angel.
The “wings” will never flap, fly or lift the child off the ground, but they will engender in Angel a dangerous obsession with flying, an obsession that will one day drive her to attempt the impossible.
A darkly comic contemporary reframing of the Icarus and Daedalus myth, WINGED ex-plores the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her child, and ultimately offers a message of salvation, not just for the family involved, but for all mankind.
#1 – Do You See Writing as a Career?
Since
writing seems to be the only skill I was born with, it's either that or
panhandling. I started writing radio and TV commercials in college, became
an advertising copywriter, then headed to Hollywood where I wrote mostly
sitcoms, starting out on Mork & Mindy and finishing up on Boy Meets World. Novel seems like the next logical step.
#2 – What was the Hardest Part of Your Writing Process?
I'm
one of those "total immersion" writers, so the hardest part for me is
remembering to stop once in a while to eat or sleep. My schedule is flexible, so if I'm in the mood to
write all night and sleep the next day, nobody has a problem with it.
#3 – Did you have any One Person Who Helped You Out with
Your Writing Outside of Your Family?
No
one person helped me with my writing, but a stellar array of brilliant authors
influenced and inspired me. Vonnegut for his tight, clean style; Nabokov for
delicious wordplay and complex construction; James Joyce, who wrote one line in
Ulysses that had the power to change my life; Dorothy Dunnett for the most
interesting, convoluted plotting I have ever read; Thorne Smith for
delightfully screwball comedies that Hollywood kept making into movies but
could never quite get it right.
#4 – What is next for your writing?
I'm sending a book of short stories to a publisher this month
and as soon as the manuscript is off, I'll toss a coin to find out if I'll
immediately move on to my next literary fiction or write a stand-alone, comedic
P.I. novel.
#5 – Do you have an addiction to reading as well as writing?
If so, what are you currently reading?
I've
been a reader since the age of three, although my taste in books has gotten a
bit more sophisticated since then. I set a goal ten years to read every Pulitzer Prize winner
for fiction that's been published since the contest's inception in 1918, and
I'm about 95% there. Unfortunately, when I'm actively writing I'm also consumed
by the process, so reading takes a back seat until I'm at least through my
first draft. As soon as I send outThe
Last First Kiss, I'll dive into
the copy of Danna Tartt's The Goldfinch,
which has been awaiting my attention for seven months.
I was born on Long Island to military parents who would have much preferred a new dining room set. After a peripatetic childhood I did hard time at the University of South Florida before moving to Los Angeles to be either a stand-up comic or a writer.
Since writing paid actual money while doing stand-up did not, I signed onto the original writing staff of MORK AND MINDY, leaving two seasons later after having written 15 of the initial 52 episodes, one of which was a finalist for the Humanitas Prize.
I then relocated to New York to write and produce the premier season of LOVE, SIDNEY, starring Tony Randall and Swoosie Kurtz, the first prime-time comedy featuring an openly gay lead character (many years before WILL AND GRACE) and the show for which I received my second Emmy nomination.
Back to the west coast, I wrote and produced series such as 9 to 5 (the TV version of the feature film), TEACHERS ONLY, starring Lynn Redgrave, and WEBSTER, before co-creating the first half-hour comedy specifically made for cable, SANCHEZ OF BEL AIR.
From 1987 to 1991 I stopped doing TV staff work so I could take a four-year course at the oldest homeopathic medical school in England. During that time I worked strictly freelance, supporting myself by writing made-for-television movies and mini-series.
After graduating from The College of Homeopathy in London, I returned to television, co-creating the series BOY MEETS WORLD which ran on ABC from 1993 to 2000. The remake, GIRL MEETS WORLD, is running on the Disney Channel right now.
In 2000 I moved to a farm in Tennessee, where I now write less soul-sucking material than TV scripts. I have two dogs who stay with me more from Stockholm syndrome than any genuine feeling of affection.
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December 19 - RABT Reviews - Wrap Up
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