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The Best Graphic Novel Possible
Hashman follows a criminal-turned-psychologist who becomes a central figure in the cannabis legalization scene. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My best friend, Josh Berman had noticed my recent graphic novel, Journey Into Mexico (2021) and asked how I’d feel if I looked over some interviews, and interviewed the subject, his father to give him a similar treatment. It turned into an obsessive quest to review outside materials, more interviews, newspaper articles and court documents to get the story straight. Josh and I really enjoyed doing the research and developing this world, and working with the artist to create what we felt was the best graphic novel possible. It was also a thrill co-writing this with Josh and learn about the Cannabis culture in which his business is based.
Joey Berkowitz is an interesting character I enjoyed following. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Well, he’s my best friend’s dad, and what started out as a simple quest to learn more about him as an adult because a long series of questions and answers to get to the bottom of his psychological dilemmas, which became a real pleasure to explore and depict, while staying as close to the truth as the various sources would provide. The main idea was that greed can destroy one’s family, but also exploring the various causes of that greed.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The main theme is that massive need for security that is rooted in a childhood trauma, can mix with an obsession for vice, and eventually lead to ones own personal destruction.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My next book, Understanding Superhero Comic Books comes out later this year published by McFarland and Co, which describes a narrative history of Superhero Comic books, their secret origins in other media, and various legal, business, and creator decisions that caused them to develop over time into what they are now.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Based on a series of interviews with eye witnesses, court reports, and newspaper articles carefully used to construct an authentic and visually visceral ride through the life of a well connected cannabis pioneer.
Her Story Was Far From Finished
My Maril is your personal memoir about growing up with Marilyn Monroe in your life and the real person behind the Hollywood image. Why was this an important story to tell?
I’ve read many of the books on Marilyn or “Maril” as we called her in my family. I finally decided to write this book with my coauthor Jay Margolis because I wanted people to see who Maril really was. The one you read about in all the other books is not the one I recognize and neither did my surviving cousins. She was very bright, extraordinarily intelligent, and highly determined to become a movie star. As we all know, Marilyn Monroe very quickly became the most famous woman in the world. I’ve never read a book about Maril from a child’s perspective and I felt that’s why my story needed to be told, to show people how innocent Maril was and that she truly loved children. She herself was as innocent as a child and she sought refuge in my family because we treated her like a normal person even after she became famous. We were her true family, the one that adopted her. My grandmother Ann “Nana” Conley thereafter became Maril’s mother for the rest of her life. So even though Maril never really connected with either of her parents, she did in fact have our family, the Kargers, to come home to until the day of her premature death.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
Maril’s death was easily the hardest part to write about. It makes me cry when I realize this friendly and lovely woman who I had known for almost fifteen years must have been murdered and that it was no accident with enough drugs in her blood to kill three people but absolutely ZERO undissolved capsules in her stomach. It was alleged she had swallowed SIXTY-FOUR pills but NOTHING in her stomach. It means she didn’t swallow the drugs that killed her and that she wasn’t responsible for her own death. It makes me wonder, “What if she hadn’t been taken from us?” Her story was far from finished.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about Marilyn’s death?
I never believed Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. My cousin Ben, my cousin Jacqui, and my own mother Patti, who was a best friend of Maril’s, all very strongly believed Maril had been murdered. I personally just never saw this woman killing herself when she had so much going for her. She’d been rehired by Twentieth Century-Fox, her interview with LIFE Magazine had just been released the day before her death and she was calling everyone including my grandmother Nana with the happy news. Maril was very proud with the positivity of the article. So Nana and her sister Effie were wondering to each other, “Why would she end it all the very next day at this very joyous time in her life?”
What were some goals you set for yourself as a writer in this book?
I wanted the reader to be placed for a short time in my shoes, to see my Maril the way I saw her. My main goal was the hope that this book would be transformative for the chauvinists of the world who thought Maril was simply a “dumb blonde,” the way the studios had perceived her, and how certain men would actually think Maril must have been that dumb in real life. Nothing could be further from the truth. She was highly intelligent. As Maril herself once said, “It would be awfully silly if people thought you were whatever you played in movies.” Maril should not only be remembered for singing “Happy Birthday” to the President. She was so much more than that. We must not forget Maril was a human being.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Marilyn, recently evolved from Norma Jeane Mortenson, was an unknown starlet when, as a twenty-one-year-old, she first met six-year-old Terry—and began dating her dad—in the spring of 1948. The orphaned, emotionally fragile actress initially babysat Fred’s daughter while turning to his family for support. Although the Marilyn-Fred romance lasted just over a year, her close friendship with the Kargers, including Fred, continued for fourteen years until the end of Marilyn’s life.
While Fred was Marilyn’s first true love, his mom, Nana, was the mother she never really had. “Maril,” as they fondly called her, was allowed to relax and be herself. It also enabled Marilyn to appease her own unfulfilled maternal instincts, acting as a cross between a sweet, playful big sister and generous, caring surrogate mom to Terry.
This memoir also reveals privately taken, previously unpublished photos of the iconic superstar with her adopted family and friends.
The Bossman’s Killer
Backstabbed on Broadway takes place in a glamourous yet menacing theatrical world where a young woman must solve the murder of her tyrannical boss and navigate the cut-throat industry. What inspired you to write a mystery novel set in the world of theater?
Many years ago I actually worked in a talent agency office, and I was shocked to the core by how insanely it was run. My boss was a screaming-and-yelling megalomaniac, but there was even more strangeness going on there than just that. I was the only one working there who wasn’t some kind of an addict and I was resented for that, which of course makes no sense. I saw lots of young people who would come to New York from all over the country, trying to break into careers in the entertainment industry, and they’d be trying to impress these wacky agents, or, many times, preyed upon by a lot of unscrupulous people who only wanted to use them as cash cows. Some got ensnared by self-proclaimed “acting teachers,” basically con artists in sheep’s clothing, who claimed they’d make “stars” out of them, and the students spend years paying for “lessons” that led nowhere. Part of the reason I wanted to write this book was as a warning. As the saying goes, “All that glitters isn’t gold.”
Was there anything about Jasmine’s character that developed organically while writing that surprised you?
There were no surprises there, really. All the way through, Jasmine has a real inner strength that her boss and co-workers lack. She’s not easily intimidated or impressed, and she doesn’t make excuses for all of the craziness she sees going on around her with the rest of these assorted nuts. She arrives at work thinking of quitting, finds her lunatic boss dead on the floor, and then learns she’s inherited his agency. It turns everything upside-down. Suddenly she owns the place and is the boss of her wacky co-workers and the phony clients she had hoped to leave behind. Furthermore, any one of them could be the bossman’s killer because he was a nightmare of a man in several different directions. So Jasmine finds herself in a dilemma. She’s debating with herself all through the story as to whether she should stick with the agency that’s been handed to her or to run the heck out of there screaming.
The book takes place in a world where many people are not who they pretend to be. How did you approach writing characters with dual identities, and what did you hope to accomplish with these complex characterizations?
I had basically seen a lot of that when I worked in show business jobs, so it really wasn’t hard to write. There’s plenty of talented people who go into the theater because they want to entertain, but there’s also some who don’t like their own backgrounds and desperately want to become someone else. I figured those types were perfect to include in a mystery story because their true selves are like unknown quantities. It makes it harder to figure out whodunit, and you have to wonder what happened to push them away from themselves in the first place.
What is the next book you are working on and when will it be available?
I tend to work on several projects at one time and I have several going at the moment. I’m particularly interested in making BACKSTABBED ON BROADWAY the start of a series and have begun work on another book featuring Jasmine and many of the same characters. With any luck, it should be ready later this year.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
We Were Encouraged To Be Authors
My Sister Wants an Elephant follows two siblings who beg their mother to have a llama and an elephant as a pet and their mother comes up with a crafty compromise. What inspired you to convert this true story into a children’s picture book?
What a great question. Thank you for asking this as it has been quite a journey. When I left my retail career, going back to college for my teaching certification and Master’s degree in Education, courses teaching how to teach literature were lack luster, to be blunt. Realizing how uninspired I was to read, let alone write anything, being pressed to outline sentences, focused on my subject/verb agreement, how would children want to write what their hearts needed to say? So, I found a writing program, please don’t ask me to name this program, enrolled in the long-distance course and began writing as per our weekly mail-in assignments. Yes, we were required to edit our work, subject verb agreement was expected as was proper spelling. However, the writing, the thought development, the characters, plot, scenes, showing not telling were most important. Others in the course, assistants and instructor, would fine tune the mechanics. We were encouraged to be authors!!! Encouraged to journal every day, writing our thoughts and feelings whatever came to mind.
Now, understand, I did not journal then, I do not journal now. I never kept a diary as a child. I never found writing feelings cathartic. Opinions, injustices to animals and people, that drove me to write. So, when the topic “Journal about your family” was assigned, this event in the family had actually just happened. Randy had run down the stairs yelling about his sister wanting an elephant as a gift for her second birthday. It was like a gift from the heavens. I wrote three paragraphs and mailed in the short story. My instructor liked the story, but found it lacked luster. I filed it away to work on other assignments.
The course ended and my stories, notes and binder took a backseat to working, shuffling children to activities and volunteering with organizations. Fast forward twenty-four years, packing up our belongings to retire to Florida and I find my writing binder with this short story. That was the moment I thought I might like to take this further, actually finishing the story, now I had the time and two granddaughters who love listening to me share stories about their family. What a fun way to share memories of their father and aunt through a book authored by their own grandmother. We settled into our new home and I began my research I like to call, “My Path to Not Publish My Book.” Besides being overwhelming, getting inundated by emails was challenging. Then, one company offered free editing of your first three pages. I had five paragraphs. With nothing to lose, I sent what I had. They loved the story, Randy’s character and the writing, encouraging me to continue the story. I refer you back to the writing instructor who claimed this story lacked luster. Ironic, no? Had she responded as this professional company, I might have created this sooner.
This inspired me to finish the story, blocking out where I wanted the illustrations or photos and begin the research again in earnest, knowing more about publishing as I self-published a memoir prior to this. Atmosphere Press and Sarah, my illustrator, were the answers. Now, twenty-nine years later, that story has finally come to life. My grandchildren helped with the cover colors and love this story. Their two favorite illustrations, their grandmother getting licked by a giraffe and walking her Siberian tiger on a leash.
The art in the book is fantastic. What was the art collaboration like with illustrator Sarah Gledhill?
Sarah was delightful to work with: flexible, funny, insightful, creative, and a great listener. I am in awe of her intuition and talent. She “got” me immediately. My manuscript included blocked out locations for either photos or illustrations. So, she respected my creative eye and vision of the book. The first experimental illustration of me was perfect. And, we had never met!!! Randy and Jerica only needed minor modifications. Communication was across Dropbox and no matter my question or suggestion, her attitude was always, “It shall be done.”
This was the most fun long-distance relationship I have ever had.
What scene in the book did you have the most fun creating?
Before answering this question, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the giraffe scene as it has stirred quite a bit of curiosity. Yes, the giraffe did lick my entire face and would have come back for more had I not jumped down from the wall in time. The illustration is spot on. To date, Randy has shared this story with my grandchildren and many of his friends.
My most fun scene, though, is when Randy and Jerica try to convince me at dinner to get this elephant, using her new pouting power, and I steal their thunder with my own dream of owning a Siberian tiger. The reaction from both children is priceless and still makes me laugh.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
There are two things: Responsibility and Fairness. If given the opportunity and proper direction, children will draw reasonable conclusions. Readers will find that mom never says no, nor does Jerica get her wish first. Mom points out through questioning and encouraging Randy to do research, even at a young age, why having llamas is not in the animals’ best interest. Randy knows in his heart apartment living in the city is not OK, as frustrating as that may be. There are things more important than his wants. Also, quite young, Jerica learns tears won’t make her mother compromise what is fair. As she explains, Jerica will get what she has asked for, but not at the expense of Randy’s feelings as he has waited patiently for a long time. No competition, we are all in this together. Neither one of the children balks.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook
My Sister Wants an Elephant is the true story of two siblings who team up together to convince their mother to let them own a couple of wild animals as pets, and a mother who just might be persuaded.
Full of humor and fun, this book is a good lesson in not giving up on your dreams, no matter how truly wild they may be!
Rooted In Reported Facts
Coyote: Pursuit and Terror Across the Border follows a brave and ambitious woman trying to save a kidnapped teenager and get her to safety. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Because this is a serial, one book leads into the next. Book 1 Set Up tells us why JadeAnne is in Mexico. Book 2, The Hydra Effect introduces the trafficking, Book 3 Nothing Comes After Z explores the problem of human trafficking and in Coyote, the immediate problem of getting the victim of trafficking to safety is solved. Living in Mexico inspired me to set the books in Mexico, human trafficking, sex slavery and forced labor outrage and sicken me. I wanted to add to the growing awareness of these problems.
Some events in the book were chillingly similar to real-life events. Did you take any inspiration from real life when developing this book?
Yes! The opening of Set Up is a try story of what happened to me, although I was not kidnapped. From there I began to read everything I could on the burgeoning problem of organized crime in Mexico. I even went back to my local community college and studied Spanish to read Spanish-language news and commentary. The story is fiction, but rooted in reported facts.
Is there anything about JadeAnne that came from yourself or your life experiences?
JadeAnne’s strengths and insecurities have a tendency to mimic mine, but I’m not adept at shooting a Glock, and I would so love to look as good in a bikini as JadeAnne!
Of course, Jade and I love the same Mexican food, music and leisure activities: cooking, reading and yoga. The dog, VW bus, and houseboat she copied from me!
Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?
In Backlash, due out November 2023, JadeAnne and new love interest, Dylan are in Sausalito. Quint, Jade’s dad, is left in Mexico to unravel why his old superior officer from his Vietnam tour, is in Mexico. And why Nader is trying to kill him. As the attacks escalate, new allies show up to help. When the attacks suddenly stop, Quint realizes Nader is on his way to California. The question is, can he get there before he loses his daughter?
Author Links: Website | GoodReads | Facebook | Twitter
Approaching The Crossroads
The Transformation of America provides readers with a stimulating read and a sketch of growing up in pre-1960 America and contrasts those times with contemporary society. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Just before his death Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendelll Holmes talked about death tugging at his ear saying come with me. He then went on to say that there is that little finishing canter when a man has one final task to complete before death finally arrives. On my 90th birthday I decided that there was one last task I wanted to complete before death finally overtook me. And that was I wanted to write about my life in my early days and what it was like growing up in an America that the majority of the current population have no first hand knowledge of and contrast that to what life is like in America today.
There are probably thousands of books published every year and the average American cannot possibly take the time to read through many books containing hundreds of pages. In fact, many of these books probably go largely unread. For this reason I have purposely kept my book short but I am confident that I have been able to include the most essential aspects of the issues I have discussed in a clear, concise and unbiased manner. By eliminating surplus and irrelevant words the impact is much more likely to leave the reader with much to think about.
Our Country has changed greatly over the past decades and it will continue to change in future decades. I have tried to highlight in an accurate and unbiased manner the major issues facing the American people today and have attempted to provide solutions to them. Realizing that everyone who reads this book will derive their own conclusions and may or may not agree with everything I say I will simply leave it as a legacy to be judged on its merits alone.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
Writing this book was not difficult as writing comes easily to me and I have simply described things in what I consider to be a fair, accurate and unbiased manner. Perhaps writing the book did bring back some moments of sadness when I briefly described the relationship I had with a young Japanese woman while on leave from Korea. It was a very happy relationship and I remember our last night together before I had to return to Korea when we were both in tears. But I returned home, got married and resumed my life. About ten years ago I wrote her a letter as she had given me an address. The letter came back two months later undelivered with Japanese writing all over it. I then contacted the Japanese Embassy. They suggested I should contact the City of Tokyo which I did. I received a very nice email from a City Official telling me how impressed he was that I was still interested in this woman but saying that there was no way they could trace her and that in any event they could not give out personal information. Two days later I received a second email from this City Official telling me how sorry he was that they could not help me. He went on to tell me that his father had served on a Japanese submarine during the war and that he was still alive and not to hesitate to contact him if he could be of help in the future. As for the Japanese woman, our love affair turned out to be a case of two ships passing in the night but there will always be a place for her in my heart and I hope someday to meet up with her in the next world so we can spend eternity together.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
My purpose in writing this book was two fold. One was to provide a glimpse of what it was like growing up in the 1940s and 1950s and to show how the Country began to change during the 1960s. We went from a nation of tranquility and innocence to a nation of liberalism creating a whole spectrum of problems that have only grown worse leading to a violent and divided nation today. The second purpose of the book is to describe the major issues facing the American people today and an attempt to provide some satisfactory solutions in solving them.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from this book?
Our Country is approaching the crossroads between democracy and dictatorship. We have gone from the wishes of our forefathers for a government of the people by the people and for the people to where government is gaining more and more control over the people often ignoring the will of a majority of the people. Our Country must be governed by the will of a majority of the American people. It is up to the American people to unite and rise up to ensure that freedom, democracy and the right of individual choice will always be preserved.
I am going to reflect the views of what I remember of the past and what I predict for the future not as what I would liked things to have happened in the past or what I would like to see happen in the future but rather I am simply calling things as I see them in a fair objective and unbiased manner. And while I do not claim to be the most intelligent person in the world I do have a distinct advantage over the younger generations in that over nine decades I have acquired wisdom and experience which along with my intuitive ability to put things in proper perspective gives me this advantage. In spite of what may seem to be insurmountable problems that exist in the United States today I have every confidence that America will always remain the most important nation in the world and that the American People will find a way to overcome any obstacles in their path.
If I Reveal My Truth
Season of the Dragon follows a cursed girl who is grappling with two souls when her father is killed by a dragon which sends her on a quest for vengeance where she becomes the hunted. What got you excited about starting this Dragos Primeri series?
The original inspiration for this story began back in 2016! Initially, I was inspired by the idea of a story with a elemental magic loosely based on my Feng Shui practice. I began talking with readers at comic-cons and book festivals about dragons and elemental magic. The world of Menauld grew out of those conversations. The main character, Quen, took a while to develop. But once I “got” her, I became excited for the possibility of the story I could tell about her—and the mysterious shadow soul within her.
Quen Santu was a character that faces a lot of obstacles. What were some sources that informed her character development?
While I don’t outline every scene for my books, I know where I want my characters to wind up at the end. For Quen, I had a premise that guided her character arc, and thus informed the conflict. The idea was this: To become our most powerful selves, we must accept the truth of what—and who—we are. That’s the “why” for writing the book, and the idea for the Quen character came from that. But an additional, and very important, idea soon developed: the bonds of family. Quen, for good reasons, questions whether she is lovable if people learn the truth about her. So that first idea—embracing the truth of who/what you are—butts up against the second story question—will people love me if I reveal my truth? That emotional question forms the spine of the story. All the fun with dragons, mages, and rogues flows from these essential questions for the main character.
What scene in the book did you have the most fun writing?
The romantic scenes are all fun to write, but the scene I enjoyed writing most is the drinking scene in the Juinar Inn. Quen’s found family is kicking back with a few drinks after a difficult day, and it was fun to imagine this group of rogue-type characters getting “pished.” I wrote a drinking song called “Song of Niyadi” that kicks off the book at the beginning. It was a blast to re-work that song into bawdy lyrics—and hella difficult as I had to stay within the rhythm of the song with the same number of syllables! But hey, that’s fun for a word nerd such as myself.
What can readers expect in book two in the Dragos Primeri series?
It’s difficult to answer without giving away the end of Season of the Dragon… I can say that book two will focus mainly on Aldewin, and readers will learn much more about this mysterious man from the north, and learn his secrets that remained at the end of book one. And as with book one, readers can expect that book two will immerse them once again in the world of Menauld—and the northern continent, Tinox. Oooh, I have such fun things planned! SotD truly is just the beginning.
Author’s Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nataliewrightauthor
“A dazzling epic fantasy kickoff that rewards and upends reader expectations.”—Editor’s Pick, BookLife Reviews
Quen wasn’t born to save the world. She was created to destroy it.
Quen Santu works for her father tanning hides, waiting for her tides to turn. Everyone she grew up with has already committed to a herdclan. But Quen was born cursed with a second, shadow soul. Sensing the oddity within, animals run from her—an untenable trait in a herding culture. On the cusp of her twentieth year, Quen is at risk of becoming pesha—no one.
Then, a dragon kills her father. The murder turns Quen’s life upside down and dashes her hope for an honorable life. As her anger grows, so does her untapped power. Fueled by a quest for vengeance, she joins a vigilante group of rogues hunting the beast. But her journey soon reveals a terrible truth: beyond the safety of her desert village, she has caught the attention of dangerous eyes. And now, she has become the hunted.
At the end of her journey, Quen’s fate will be sealed. Can Quen overcome her curse and unite her warring souls? Or will her shadow soul consume her—and everyone she loves?
The fate of her homeland—and all she loves—hangs in the balance.
The Next Level Of Craft
Godsmack Part 1: The Mother Earth follows a gay businessman who becomes sick and moves to a rural farm to heal and start a new life. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for my story was the contemporary archetypal personal healing journey that’s both mental and physical. Many of us had to learn the hard way about proper rest, nutrition, nurturing companionship, and not letting our careers “sap” our life force.
With so many interesting characters in this novel, what was your approach to writing the interactions between characters?
Likable and psychologically deep characters are the most important aspect of storytelling from my viewpoint. If the reader is to engage emotionally and stay with your story to the last page of your novel, I feel they need to relate and understand and be intrigued by the characters in both word and deed. The next level of craft for me is to thoroughly know how they feel about each other while maintaining a realistic and human moment-by-moment behavior that’s not stilted or filled with cliche dialogue. I think my acting training and work in that field has a big impact on my emphasizing all the detailed work on the characters when I sit down to write.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I personally love to examine disparate and opposite themes. I find it challenging in a good way to put varied thematic elements into a story and find hidden connections. My overall goal was to have the reader come away with a deeper understanding of life and human beings. What I chose in Godsmack was to combine death (via the central symbol of heroin) and life (via the plot milestones for the protagonist, and the story’s denouement symbolized by spiritual wisdom achieved at the close of the novel.) Hence the title: God (spirit), smack (the street name for heroin), and The Mother Earth (the mechanism for healing).
Where does the story go in the next book and where do you see it going in the future?
My next book will be a prequel to the current novel which will provide a deep backstory for the criminal gang.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
LITERARY TITAN 