Author Archives: Literary_Titan
Through the Eyes of Everyday People
Abigail Trench follows a displaced schoolteacher in Revolutionary-era New York as she is drawn from daily survival into a dangerous world of espionage, political awakening, and self-invention. What drew you to tell a Revolutionary War spy story from the perspective of someone outside the usual circles of officers, generals, and famous patriots?
I’ve always been interested in history, especially the history of the American Revolution. I’ve read numerous books about the era, both fiction and nonfiction. What I’ve noticed about the best historical fiction authors, such as Ken Follett, is that they tell the story of the era through the eyes of everyday people, allowing readers to experience this period through the eyes of ordinary individuals. I chose a teacher as my protagonist in ABIGAIL in part because she gives readers someone to relate to. In my novel, readers do meet famous figures from the revolution, such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Nathan Hale. But the real heroes of my story are teachers and merchants and pickpockets.
Abigail begins the novel as a teacher rather than a trained operative. How did you approach making her transformation into a spy feel believable?
The truth is none of the members of the Culper Ring was a trained operative. With the exception of Benjamin Tallmadge, Washington’s Spymaster, who worked in the militia, none of the other members had military or any other kind of training. So, in the story, when the British strip Abigail of her profession, her home and her virtue, she resolves to fight back. When her position gives her the opportunity to overhear certain secrets of the British, she turns her resolve to strike back against the Redcoats into a weapon.
The novel pays close attention to class, labor, danger, and street-level survival. What kinds of research helped you build that texture of Revolutionary-era New York?
I’ve read quite a few books about this era and have gained insights from them, especially Gore Vidal’s historical novel, BURR. I also spent considerable time researching primary sources about some of the gritty details of life in colonial America in 1776. Some aspects of life in late 18th century have been documented, e.g., the 1776 fire in New York City, the unsanitary conditions of life in the city, and the execution of Thomas Hinkle. Other details had to be fleshed out with my imagination, and that’s half the fun.
How did you balance real historical figures like Nathan Hale and Robert Townsend with Abigail’s fictional emotional journey?
Overall, the historical record for most of what happened during this time is sparse. Of course, it has been 250 years. We have only few details and particulars on individuals like Nathan Hale and Robert Townsend. I was able to take some of those details—like the fact that Nathan Hale was also a teacher–and weave them into my tale of Abigail. In fact, the paucity of verified information gave me greater flexibility to develop my narrative of a woman who tutored officer’s children by day and carried intelligence to secret meetings at waterfront taverns at night.
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Evolving
Shadows in the Creek follows a disgraced journalist who returns to his picture-perfect town to investigate the murder of a young woman, only to uncover the lies the town has kept hidden.Was Edenvale inspired by a real place, or more of a symbolic landscape?
For me, Edenvale is more of a symbolic landscape, though the setting is somewhere familiar – a small, idyllic town somewhere between Hartford, Connecticut and New York. I live in Connecticut, and for my first novel, I needed the setting to hit close to home. But the place is symbolic in that Dante Villehart, the disgraced journalist, comes to this town he feels is quiet enough to allow him to escape into anonymity. Just as he is trying to settle, he learns of the demise of someone he knew very well. He is suddenly compelled to get back into investigative journalism, much against his initial will. He quickly learns in the process that this apparently quiet town is heavily laden with secrets the rich and powerful would literally kill to keep buried.
Dante feels both capable and compromised. How did you shape his moral center, and how important was his past failure in driving the present investigation?
Many people, including myself, have made mistakes in the past. However, not all of us get to correct them once they are acknowledged. That is, we don’t often get the redemption opportunities that would help to lighten the load of our past guilt. Dante has this opportunity, though he came by this reluctantly at first. He is compromised because he knows his mistakes directly led to consequences he wished never developed. But this compromise leads to his resilience. He now has an unwavering desire to not fail in his quests to unearth the truth. Sometimes his pursuit of the truth puts him in danger–another compromise that gives him the grit he needs to prove himself capable.
The book thrives on mood as much as mystery. How do you balance tension with introspection in a crime story?
Dante is actually coming to terms with the new person he is becoming. He is driven by his desire not to fail again but could still fail if he makes the rash decisions he once made under pressure in his past. Now, he is not trying to make deadlines with a story. He now has to solve a mystery that requires swift attention and also demands careful introspection as a guide to ensure his new path is not paved with the familiar failure he once knew. In other words, Dante is evolving while he solves the case. Part of this process necessarily requires that he reflects and looks inwards for strength and guidance.
Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out and what can your fans expect in the next story?
Shadows in the Creek is in fact the first book of the Dante Villehart Redemption series. The series has three books, the other two being Death in the Manor and Knight In Gale: Vengeance. The two latter books have been published recently, and I am hoping to use the momentum of Shadows in the Creek to propel them.
Fans can expect Dante to continue evolving. In the past, he would push people away, keep his guard up, and wouldn’t allow anyone to get too close. He lets himself become more vulnerable in letting others in but is still cautious as his association with people could put them in danger (and often does). Therefore, Dante starts to become the new redeemed man he has started to become – still with flaws, but less guarded and more balanced.
Fans can also expect to see Dante continue his journey solving cases in The Dante Villehart Files.
Spy. Fight. Survive.
Mission: The Figueroa Cipher follows two elite teenage spies on a mission that takes them around the globe to locate stolen nuclear launch codes before they can be used to start WWIII. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The original idea was the bad guy hacked the ICBM system to cause the missiles to self-destruct in their bunkers simultaneously, or change their targets in-flight. When I did research, I found out 1960s technology didn’t exist to perform either function. So I backtracked down the launch sequence to codes used.
James and Dakota’s chemistry really drives the story. How did you develop their dynamic, do they represent different philosophies of espionage or just different personalities?
James and Dakota are different personalities, a variation of “opposites attract.” I’ve attended, as well as performed and directed, a lot of theater since before high school. Their dynamic is probably a conglomeration of characters I’ve seen/played/directed over the years. So when I write, I put them “on stage” in my mind and see what bubbles up.
The book leans into riddles and coded clues. What makes that structure satisfying for you as a writer?
Treasure hunt books are always fun, regardless of genre!
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
The third book takes place in London, Amsterdam, Basel (Switzerland), and the Philippines.
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James Vagus and Dakota Walker are teen agents in America’s covert MIS-X program—trained to think fast, fight smart, and trust no one except each other. What starts as a routine assignment in Rio de Janeiro turns into a global scavenger hunt when nuclear launch codes vanish, threatening to ignite a World War III.
From the streets of Marrakesh to the casinos of Monte Carlo and the deserts of Nevada, every clue draws them deeper into a shadowy world of double agents and false alliances. But when they’re forced to team up with two Soviet operatives—Nadya and Sasha—the line between friend and enemy blurs fast. Can rival spies work together long enough to stop a possible global catastrophe, or will old loyalties destroy them first?
Spy. Fight. Survive.
Love is a Lifetime Commitment
In And It Only Took 100 Years…, you share the trials of your youth, your career in show business, and your enduring love story that has defied all odds. What made you decide to share your story with readers?
Seventeen years ago, our friend Joan Rivers gave a dinner party at her house near ours in Connecticut to celebrate New Year’s. She insisted that we go around the table and each person had to say what they were thankful for. She began by saying she was thankful that her daughter and grandchild were well and happy; a guest from England, who owned a huge farm, was thankful for a splendid harvest; a young man said he was thankful for a puppy he had been given for Christmas. Then it came to me, and I said, “I am thankful that Norman and I have been together for 50 years.” Although we lived openly together, I had never alluded to how long our relationship had lasted in such a public way, and there was a moment of shock and then congratulations. Afterward, the boy who’d talked about the dog came over to me. “I’ve been with the man who is my husband for fifteen years, but you two are an amazing example of what I hope we can become. You really have changed my life.” On the way home, I reminded Norman of the articles we had been reading about young gays committing suicide because they felt there was no future in being gay. “If we are an example, maybe we have the responsibility to tell people how wonderful our life can be….” We wrote a book called “Double Life” about our relationship that is still read today. And recently, I decided to tell my story from age 15 to 100 to show how life has changed for me, from World War II to the present day, as well as for the world I lived in. I hope people suffering from doubts about long-lasting love can take heart from my story and know that it is possible.
You write about figures like Bette Davis, Helen Hayes, and Barbra Streisand without losing your own narrative center. How did you balance telling your story without being overshadowed by theirs?
From the time I was a young actor, I was involved with celebrities in some way. I acted with Maurice Evans, who was a huge star in his time. So was Katherine Cornell when I was in her company of “Antony and Cleopatra”. They were part of my life as I worked with them eight times a week. Of course, they were stars and not my buddies, and they were my bosses, but still, they were part of my everyday life. Helen Hayes became a friend when I wrote “The Snoop Sisters” for television. She and Katharine Hepburn were down-to-earth people with decided tastes and enormous talent. Streisand, I watched grow from a plain young girl to a huge screen star. I worked with young actors like Charleston Heston and Tony Randall before they became stars, and when I turned to casting, actors like Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino, I came into contact with them before they were stars. My book is not about their lives unless they affect mine in some way. I was in on the beginning of Streisand’s life, but it was part of my development, not only hers. Helen Hayes sent for me from Hollywood, and it affected my life more than hers. My book is my story, and certainly Marlon Brando played a role, but as a supporting player in my story of leaving the New School and taking a small part in the War. But finally, I wrote about what I know – my own life, not the star’s, unless it affected me in some important way.
Your relationship with Norman feels like the emotional anchor of the book. What did you learn about love that you couldn’t have understood earlier in life?
I learned that love is a lifetime commitment. It becomes your family, your friends, your mornings, your evenings, your health, and your sickness. Norman and I married when the law allowed us to, but many years after we had been together. We didn’t need the emotional security, but we did it mainly to join the gay movement into the mainstream. But as I heard the word “commitment” from the woman who married us, I began to cry. I think the realization was dawning on me that she was talking about LIFE, not just being together for passion, attractiveness, fun, and games. This was for life, swearing under the stars and the heavens, but also forever, eternity. That had not been part of the thoughts in my head when I first saw Norman, but they were now what I knew was the truth.
If you could speak to that young boy looking through shop windows, what would you tell him?
I would tell my young self to have courage, be brave, and not be with people who put you down, even if they are your own family. Follow your dream, but remember that sometimes fate will help you along the way. You have to work your ass off all the time – it is never easy. And if you ever get to the point where what you have worked so hard for is not going to work out for you, don’t be afraid to stop and try something else. It’s better than being always disappointed or chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. Never forget that life is love as well as work. Most importantly, God, whoever that is, is there to help you. You are not alone.
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Yet the real story unfolds far from the lights of Broadway or Hollywood. It’s found in his six-decades-long partnership with artist Norman Sunshine, a love story that endured secrecy, prejudice, and time itself. Together they created a shared life filled with beauty, humor, and devotion, proving that the most extraordinary thing of all is the quiet miracle of lasting love.
Only about 0.03% of Americans ever reach 100, and fewer still arrive there with such grace, insight, and gratitude. Reflective, wise, and deeply human, AND IT ONLY TOOK 100 YEARS… is a celebration of work, love, and the mysterious force that binds them-the hard-won truth that, in the end, a full life is its own masterpiece.
Kindness Is A Powerful Choice
Hop’s Tales: The Kind Bunny is a rhyming picture book in which a school-loving bunny learns to recover from a hurtful remark, reclaim his confidence, and answer cruelty with empathy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from everyday moments children experience but don’t always know how to process. I wanted to create a familiar, safe environment where young readers could see themselves reflected. The classroom setting allowed me to explore how a single unkind moment can impact a child’s confidence, while also showing that those moments don’t have to define them. At its heart, the story is about helping children understand that kindness—both toward others and themselves—is a powerful choice.
How did you approach writing Hop’s emotional journey so it would feel tender and true without becoming too heavy for young readers?
It was important to strike a balance between honesty and hope. Children are incredibly perceptive and they recognize hurt feelings. But they also need reassurance and resolution. I focused on keeping Hop’s emotions authentic but gentle, allowing readers to feel his sadness without lingering too long in it. By guiding him toward empathy and self-confidence, the story models emotional resilience in a way that feels empowering rather than overwhelming. The goal was always to leave children feeling safe, understood, and uplifted.
What role did rhyme play in shaping the tone and pacing of the story?
Rhyme played a huge role in making the story feel approachable and engaging. It creates a natural rhythm that helps carry readers through emotional moments with a sense of lightness and flow. For young children especially, rhyme adds a musical quality that makes the story more memorable and comforting. It also helps soften heavier themes, allowing important messages about kindness and empathy to land in a way that feels gentle rather than intense.
What kinds of conversations do you hope this book sparks in homes and classrooms?
I hope it opens the door for meaningful conversations about kindness, empathy, and how our words affect others. More importantly, I hope it encourages children to talk about their own feelings—times they’ve been hurt, or even times they may have unintentionally hurt someone else. In classrooms and at home, this book can be a starting point for discussing how to respond to unkindness with courage and compassion. Ultimately, I want it to reinforce that being kind isn’t just the right choice. It’s a strong and powerful one.
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Educators teaching social-emotional learning
Classroom read-alouds and discussion starters
Children learning about kindness, friendship, and confidence
Kids who love fun rhymes and lovable animal characters
Key Features:Engaging rhyming text that makes reading fun
Positive messages about kindness and self-confidence
Relatable friendship challenges for young children
Ideal for preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary readers
A thoughtful gift for birthdays, classrooms, and young readers who love animals
A sweet and inspiring story that helps children discover that being kind, brave, and true to yourself is the coolest thing of all.
Asking For Help Is Not Weakness
Travis Heights follows your journey from a violent 1970s Austin childhood to military service, career survival, and a fraught final reckoning with the father whose love and harm shaped your life. Why was this an important book for you to write?
For most of my adult life I carried that story alone. After I left home, I “put my feelings in a box in the back of my head.” The Marines taught me to accomplish the mission and move on: you don’t dwell, you don’t complain, you drive on. That worked well enough until it didn’t.
When I called my father near Austin, and he needed help, I had a choice: stay stuck in twenty-five years of distance, or go get him. Writing the book was how I made sense of everything that led to how I got to where I am today. What I didn’t expect was how much I’d find in that box.
Decades of compartmentalized experience don’t just sit quietly forever. They shape how you lead, how you love, and how you show up for the people who need you. And here’s what that taught me: the mission I thought I’d completed — surviving, building a career, moving on — was only half the work. The other half was understanding what I’d carried to get there, and deciding what was worth keeping.
I also kept thinking about the kids who are living what I lived. If one person reads this and decides to ask for help instead of walking out the door alone, it was worth every uncomfortable page.
How did you choose which “rules” to include, and did writing them change how you understood those lessons?
The rules chose themselves. Each one represents an important life lesson for me at that time. I’d be deep in a scene, like leaving home, the library, or hitchhiking, and I’d realize there was something I learned there that I still carry.
Some of them I was proud of. Others I had to sit with because writing them out made me see they were survival strategies that had outlived their usefulness. But I still needed to capture them, examine them.
The Marine Corps gave me a framework for rules and discipline, but it also reinforced the walls I’d built around the harder stuff. Putting the rules on the page forced me to ask whether I’d actually learned what I thought I had. What I found was that some of those rules had been running my life quietly for decades — shaping decisions I thought I was making freely. That’s the thing about survival mode: it works so well you forget you’re still in it.
Was it difficult to write about your father and Beulah with both honesty and complexity?
My father was the hardest. Beulah was easier in a way. The hypocrisy, the racism, and the manipulation were clear-cut, and time had given me enough distance to name them plainly.
My father was different. He could be genuinely warm and funny and present, and then the switch flipped. Writing him meant holding both of those things at once without letting either one cancel the other out. I didn’t want to write a villain. I wanted to write the man I actually knew — which was more unsettling than a villain would have been. Because if he were just a monster, I could have put him down and walked away clean.
The harder truth is that I loved him, and that love is what made the distance of twenty-five years hurt as much as anything he ever did. Writing that cost me something. But it’s also the most honest thing in the book. And I think that honesty is what readers feel. The people who’ve reached out to me after reading it don’t say “I hated your father.” They say “I understood him.” That’s the response I was hoping for. Not absolution, not condemnation, but recognition. Because most of us didn’t grow up with monsters. We grew up with complicated people who didn’t always know what to do with us.
What do you hope readers from chaotic or abusive families take away from your story?
That reconciliation doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t happen. You don’t have to forgive and forget, and you don’t have to stay stuck in the wound either. What I found — slowly, and not without resistance — was that I could tell the truth about what my father did and still choose not to let it define the rest of my life.
That distinction matters, because a lot of people I’ve talked to believe those are the only two options: bury it or be consumed by it. There’s a third way, and it’s harder than either of those, but it’s the one that actually lets you move forward.
I also want readers to know that asking for help is not weakness. I wish I had. If you’re in a situation like the one I grew up in, there are people who will show up for you. Covenant House International exists for exactly that reason, and ten percent of the net profits from this book go to support their work with homeless, runaway, and trafficked kids.
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Then Ray made a choice: he reached out.
It wasn’t the reconciliation either of them expected. No apologies. No pretending. No going back to who they were. Just two men — changed by time, shaped by separate lives — choosing to find each other anyway.
Travis Heights is the story of what happens when healing requires not forgiveness, but transformation.
Some broken things can be repaired, even after twenty-five years. For every family that went quiet. For everyone who wonders whether reaching back is worth the risk.
It is.
The Proverbial Crock Pot
Space Station Halcyon follows a middle-aged gambler coerced into managing a derelict space station as he faces both mob pressure and a doomed government inspection. Where did the idea behind this story come from?
Hoo boy. Bits and pieces fell into the proverbial crock pot over the course of a few weeks. Daryl the manatee came from an awkward encounter I once had with a real life manatee in a beach bar (I don’t want to talk about it). Hali the AI was inspired by that time Chat GPT made me cry (for reasons I’ve now totally forgotten). Joey is basically a better version of me, but also a raging alcoholic.
All of this marinated for a few weeks in a midlife crisis, and voila! Space Station Halcyon was served!
Do you think comedy makes violence hit harder, or softens it?
Comedy is like the soothing back rub on the tense shoulders of deadly violence. It should be used lovingly, sparingly. Otherwise, it’s just a nuisance.
Do you see the station as a kind of found family, even if it’s a dysfunctional one?
The station is more like a high security cell block of felons who are so socially stunted, so painfully outcast, they need an AI to prompt them not to kill each other. So, yeah, they’re just like family.
What kind of reader do you hope finds this book?
The kind who will buy lots and lots of copies of my book and sprinkle them freely about their favorite watering holes, fitness centers, and places of worship.
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Joey Mumbai’s down on his luck and over his head. To pay off his gambling debts, he’s forced to run an old space station at the end of the galaxy as a “legitimate business” for the mob. All Joey has to do is make money—and not attract any attention. But Space Station Halcyon is like a floating death trap, with a rage-filled manatee, a psychotically cheerful computer, and a sports bar that may or may not be possessed.
When a government code inspector and her enforcerbot drop by the station, Joey must bluff, bribe, and connive his way through interstellar bureaucracy, laser gun fights, and the worst beer in the galaxy. Can Joey turn his derelict station and degenerate crew into something resembling legality? Or is the whole place going to explode in a cloud of code violations? Or maybe both?
Space Station Halcyon is a wild and raucous sci-fi comedy about bad luck, worse decisions, and the cosmic horror of being put in charge. A Hitchhiker’s Guide-esque romp that answers the eternal question: “Who’s in charge around here?”
Sharing a Sense of Magic
Houdini Saves the Farm follows a magical dog who, after the farmer is injured and animals begin vanishing, sets out to find the cause. What was the inspiration for your story?
The inspiration for this story comes from our real dog, Houdini. My fiancé adopted him when he was just ten weeks old after seeing a video showcasing his engaging and playful nature. Since joining our family, Houdini has certainly lived up to his name. One moment, he’s right by your side, and the next, he seems to have vanished. We once bought him a lightweight pop-up dog house, but instead of using it to sleep, he would flip it over and roll through the house like a hamster in a wheel. Houdini also enjoys quietly watching the neighbors, other dogs, and people passing by, never barking or revealing his spot, simply observing the world around him. With his adorable looks and vibrant personality, Houdini truly feels magical to us. I wanted to share that sense of magic—the “larger than life” quality—with young readers in a colorful, educational, and entertaining way. Being from the Midwest, it felt natural to set the first story in the series on a farm.
Houdini’s early trait becomes key to solving the mystery. How important is it for you to show children how actions and abilities connect to outcomes?
By paying attention to the world around you, it’s possible to discover ways your own talents can help others. In Houdini’s case, he cleverly disguised himself by covering himself in mud and then shorn wool, allowing him to blend in with the sheep in anticipation of their abduction. Through this clever camouflage, he was able to locate the missing animals and escape to alert the farmer and rancher. His actions led directly to the safe return of the animals and the capture of the outlaws responsible for their disappearance.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The book explores several important themes, including the value of observation, the significance of using your unique strengths to help others, and the importance of resourcefulness and courage when facing challenges.
At its heart, the story is about a dog protecting his home. What message did you most want children to take away?
The message I hope children take away is that everyone has something special to offer, and by using your abilities thoughtfully and bravely, you can make a meaningful difference in the world around you.
