BIO
I used to bill myself as a recovering businessperson. But now, nearly 15 years removed from my business career, all the memories of wheeling & dealing are nearly overwhelmed by the always jarring, yet equally essential certainty of literary rejection.
In business, they say you learn more from failure than success (which, from my experience I can tell you is a load of—), but how best to assess rejection? Purely objective assessment is hard to find, only subjectivity, and who knows whether the reader evaluating your hard work was distracted or pissed off while reading your intended masterpiece. Still, the one thing I’ve learned from countless submissions is that when rejections start to bulge from their file folder, it’s long past time to hit rewrite.
A couple of the stories linked to this site were accepted from the first batch of submissions—and, true, they were exceptional—but most earned acceptance and publication only after multiple rounds of critical reading, editing, and, substantial deletion. If nothing else, I hope this website demonstrates my full embrace of the literary life and all its vagaries.
Still, please allow me a moment to summarize how I got here.
My career — the first one — started after graduating from Boston University (B.S. in Public Communication). I cleaned out the bong, garaged the beer and pizza stained mini-fridge, and, succumbing to parental influence, took a job.
First off was a marketing internship at a telecommunications equipment company, then junior flunky at a private equity firm where they sent me to manage a short-line railroad (the Wolfeboro Rail Road in New Hampshire), before shipping me off to earn an M.B.A. from Northwestern University. From there it was on to restaurant management in Chicago, deals in real estate, grain transportation, and video marketing, and, finally co-founding a video and DVD publishing and distribution company, Goldhil Home Media International in Los Angeles.
For 13 years we produced and distributed such legendary home video and DVD programs as: Lilias! – Alive with Yoga, David Carradine’s Tai Chi Workout (huge seller!), Twisters!, the Just The Facts Learning Series, and, Bellydance for Fitness (a Walmart hit!), along with over 1000 additional titles. Our success on the fringe of Hollywood generated multiple buy-out offers, one so large we couldn’t refuse.
During those years, I lived a somewhat nomadic existence: Boston, New Hampshire, Chicago, St. Louis, even a stint in Los Angeles; but ultimately settled in New York City where I met my wife, Mindy (a physical therapist, prescribed to fix lingering back problems, whose first words to me were: “Strip to your underwear”). We moved to the ‘burbs, our daughter was born (now married and working in finance in NYC), and then, before either of us realized what was happening, I began to write.
First off was a Master of Arts in Writing degree at Manhattanville College, then an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Along the way I’ve been fortunate to attend workshops led by: Elizabeth Strout, Robert Boswell, Jeff Bens, Ron Carlson, Peter Ho Davies, Bret Lott, David Jauss, Jacqueline Mitchard, Jess Walter, and Clint McCown, and now I have over a dozen publishing credits, two novels ready to roll, and one helluva lot of scar tissue.
I only wish I’d started sooner!
BIO
I used to bill myself as a recovering businessperson. But now, nearly 15 years removed from my business career, all the memories of wheeling & dealing are nearly overwhelmed by the always jarring, yet equally essential certainty of literary rejection.
In business, they say you learn more from failure than success (which, from my experience I can tell you is a load of—), but how best to assess rejection? Purely objective assessment is hard to find, only subjectivity, and who knows whether the reader evaluating your hard work was distracted or pissed off while reading your intended masterpiece. Still, the one thing I’ve learned from countless submissions is that when rejections start to bulge from their file folder, it’s long past time to hit rewrite.
A couple of the stories linked to this site were accepted from the first batch of submissions—and, true, they were exceptional—but most earned acceptance and publication only after multiple rounds of critical reading, editing, and, substantial deletion. If nothing else, I hope this website demonstrates my full embrace of the literary life and all its vagaries.
Still, please allow me a moment to summarize how I got here.
My career — the first one — started after graduating from Boston University (B.S. in Public Communication). I cleaned out the bong, garaged the beer and pizza stained mini-fridge, and, succumbing to parental influence, took a job.
First off was a marketing internship at a telecommunications equipment company, then junior flunky at a private equity firm where they sent me to manage a short-line railroad (the Wolfeboro Rail Road in New Hampshire), before shipping me off to earn an M.B.A. from Northwestern University. From there it was on to restaurant management in Chicago, deals in real estate, grain transportation, and video marketing, and, finally co-founding a video and DVD publishing and distribution company, Goldhil Home Media International in Los Angeles.
For 13 years we produced and distributed such legendary home video and DVD programs as: Lilias! – Alive with Yoga, David Carradine’s Tai Chi Workout (huge seller!), Twisters!, the Just The Facts Learning Series, and, Bellydance for Fitness (a Walmart hit!), along with over 1000 additional titles. Our success on the fringe of Hollywood generated multiple buy-out offers, one so large we couldn’t refuse.
During those years, I lived a somewhat nomadic existence: Boston, New Hampshire, Chicago, St. Louis, even a stint in Los Angeles; but ultimately settled in New York City where I met my wife, Mindy (a physical therapist, prescribed to fix lingering back problems, whose first words to me were: “Strip to your underwear”). We moved to the ‘burbs, our daughter was born (now married and working in finance in NYC), and then, before either of us realized what was happening, I began to write.
First off was a Master of Arts in Writing degree at Manhattanville College, then an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Along the way I’ve been fortunate to attend workshops led by: Elizabeth Strout, Robert Boswell, Jeff Bens, Ron Carlson, Peter Ho Davies, Bret Lott, David Jauss, Jacqueline Mitchard, Jess Walter, and Clint McCown, and now I have over a dozen publishing credits, two novels ready to roll, and one helluva lot of scar tissue.
I only wish I’d started sooner!