So…The Snow Globe
This Friday, March 17th (St. Patrick’s Day), my 4th novel, The Snow Globe, will release.
Why St. Patrick’s Day? To honor my late mother, who was Irish and loved the day. She always wanted to remind me that even though I was half Italian, I still had a good chunk of The Isle in me. This is my way of reminding her, up there in heaven, that I haven’t forgotten.
The Snow Globe began as a short story fifteen years ago in a Creative Writing class I took at Pasadena City College in California, when I decided to return to writing after more than a decade away. Stories. They’re the stuff of life. As I was soon to find out. One woman at school, always outgoing and friendly towards me, suddenly went out of her way to avoid me after The Snow Globe was read in class. I later discovered that she’d been stalked for two years and that the story had completely freaked her out. Then, another woman, this one in my writer’s critique group, had the same reaction a year later, when I brought the story in for a reading. She’d been stalked by a violent ex-boyfriend three years before.
After that I began to wonder, what were the odds that this would happen twice? So, I checked. Sadly, they are quite high. According to The National Center for Victims of Crime, over 6 million women a year are stalked in the United States alone. Of these, 60% will be stalked by an ex-lover, an astonishing 40% by an “acquaintance or stranger” and 10% by a family member. And worst of all? 70% of all femicides in the U.S. are committed by an ex-lover.
Over the last year, as I wrote and revised the novel, women came to me to share their stories, real stories, of how they, or their best friend, or their sister were stalked. And then there was the psychologist I encountered during my research who explained in great detail the risk a woman takes just by turning a man down for a date, much less when she tries to end a relationship. As the father of a ten-year-old girl, I found it all to be very sobering…and chilling.
I want to thank the creative team that helped bring this book to fruition: my editor in the U.K., Sophie Playle of Liminal Pages, who never hesitates to crack me upside the head….Laird Sapir of Memphis McKay Web Design, who needs chewable coffee cubes just to deal with the stunning depth of my ignorance when it comes to the internet…and Jennifer Oliver of Sidekick Jenn, my author's assistant, who helped format the book and keep me on track.
Writing this novel has been a journey – at times arduous, but mostly very rewarding – that I will never forget. Maggie will always be the girl I loved to write. I hope she becomes the girl you love to read. A SPECIAL EMAIL IS COMING YOUR WAY THIS FRIDAY. BE READY! And don't forget to drop me a line to say “Hi!”. It means a lot to me and I respond to every email I get!
Thanks,
Tony
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
THE SNOW GLOBE OFFICIAL LAUNCH PARTY WILL BE AT FLINTRIDGE BOOKSTORE & COFFEE HOUSE (1010 FOOTHILL BLVD, LA CANADA, CA 91011) ON SUNDAY, APRIL 2ND AT 4PM. ALL ARE WELCOME. COFFEE AND TREATS WILL BE SERVED.
MY WORK ON “ANOTHER ONE”, BOOK 4 OF WHAT HAS NOW BECOME “THE MILLIONTH SERIES” IS UNDERWAY!!! I’M AT 30,000 WORDS AND HOPE TO HAVE IT READY FOR PUBLICATION BY THIS SUMMER. BOOK 5 AND BOOK 6 ARE OUTLINED, WITH TENTATIVE RELEASE DATES FOR FALL AND WINTER. I GUESS THIS MEANS THAT I’M A “SEASONAL WRITER”. LOL
