Authorsday: Vincent Zandri

1. When did you know you wanted to be a writer? When, for the first time, I was woken up by my dad at six in the morning not a week after graduating from college. He shouted, “Time for work!” I nearly vomited. I thought, no one ever woke up Ernest Hemingway and told him to get to work. Work sucks.

2. How long have you been writing? Professionally for twenty-one years. But I’ve always been writing and making things up for as long as I can remember. I have two older sisters and no brothers so I was sort of an only child. 3. How did you pick the genre you write in? It picked me. I was turned on to authors like Jim Crumley and Robert B. Parker by friends of mine who loved to read but couldn’t write. When I read Dancing Bear for the first time, I knew I wanted to write like Crumley. Interestingly, I didn’t even realize he was writing in the noir and mystery genre. For a while I was reading him as just another literary guy with a real talent for plotting. Only in American do we genre-ize so much. In France and other parts of Europe, I’m just known as a “writer.” 4. Do you plot or do you write by the seat of your pants? The first draft is more or less a very detailed outline. At this point in the game, I’ve written so many novels that I’m pretty comfortable with making it up as I go, and allowing things to develop organically. But sometimes I end up writing myself into a corner. You just have to tie on a pair of steel cojones and write yourself back out of it. 5. What drew you to the subject of Permanence? At the time, my sister in law had moved into a big house that had an attached garage with an apartment over it. The apartment had been used as an office by a psychiatrist who carried on an affair with one of his female clients. I found that fascinating. Did they engage in their psychiatric session before they had sex? Or did they have sex first and then discuss things in the buff? We’re they in love? Or were they just getting off? Did they eventually pursue a relationship outside the office? In my novel, they do, and it turns out tragically. 6. Did you encounter any obstacles in researching it? Not really. I’d been to the places I wrote about in New York, Venice and other parts of Italy, and I was able to research a little about women and psychotic tendencies especially those that might occur immediately after giving birth. The internet was in its infancy then, so I did a lot of research over a dial-up connection that was often interrupted by my then four year old who on occasion would pick the phone up off its cradle. 7. What do you know now that you are published that you didn’t know pre-published that you wish you knew?

That publishers aren’t interested in selling books. That’s the author’s responsibility. Publishers just have a checking account and a printing press. 8. How many rejections have you received? More rejections than the procreating blood cells in my veins. 9. What was the best writing advice someone gave you? If you want to be a serious journalist you must learn to write interestingly about a teabag. That advice comes from a colleague of mine at RT, Lizette Potgeiter who is based in Kabul and one hell of a journalist. Genre: Suspense Publisher: Bear Media; 2 edition Publication Date: May 4,2012 Number of Pages: 143 Purchase Links: Amazon Synopsis: Based upon Vincent Zandri's most anthologized Pushcart Prize-nominated short story of the same title, Permanence, is the "Hitchcockian" story of Mary Kismet, a travel agent and grieving mother of a toddler who suffered an apparent accidental drowning. Now, all alone in the world, she attempts to ease the pain of her suffering by immersing herself, body and soul, into a love affair with her psychiatrist, a man haunted by his own demons. A tragic novel of obsession, dark compulsions, and madness, Permanence transports the ill-fated lovers from New York to Venice, Italy, and back again Author Bio: Vincent Zandri is the No. 1 International Bestselling Amazon Kindle author of THE INNOCENT, GODCHILD, THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT FALLS, CONCRETE PEARL and the forthcoming MOONLIGHT RISES. He is also the author of the bestselling digital shorts, PATHOLOGICAL and MOONLIGHT MAFIA. Harlan Coben has described his novels as "...gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting," while the New York Post called THE INNOCENT, "Sensational...Masterful...Brilliant!" In March, April and May of 2011, he sold more than 100,000 Kindle E-Books editions of his novels, and is rapidly closing in on the 200K mark all totaled. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated into many languages including the Dutch, Russian and Japanese. An adventurer, foreign correspondent, and freelance photo-journalist for RT, Globalspec, IBTimes and more, he divides his time between New York and Florence, Italy.