Fascinating Authors

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

Author: I was finally able to write about my favorite time year: Christmas. I had a number of ideas, but the strongest one came from imagining how a visitor from another time would view the life of one unhappy man. Now, we’ve had plenty of Scrooge-type stories, but they tend to blame everything on greed, or the big terrible corporation behind the greedy person. Not many stories reflect what we’ve done right as a culture and how awful it is to deny the good; all the accomplishments. I wanted to show that a person’s misery might be the result of an emotional blindness to their culture’s beauty and achievements.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How long did the book take you from start to finish?

Author: The story came quickly, within minutes I had the plot. The actual writing and editing went on for two years.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

Author: The ending was most challenging. I thought the initial ending was good but it shut down the story too soon. I added several more scenes, giving it a new energy right through to the end.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

Author: I enjoy every stage, although the initial inspiration and note-taking ones are the most exhilarating.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

Author: Well, the story idea came while I was overseas and that was bittersweet. It felt like a compensation for my time away from home. I was based in Jakarta where terrorists struck yearly and boa constrictors occasionally wrapped themselves in the power lines and knocked out the electricity for hours. But in all my years of travel I’ve never met a better people than the Indonesians: kind, sweet, and very loyal.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

Author: Before one starts marching down the road to some new paradise, we need to remember what we’ve accomplished as a people and not take our liberties and high standard of living for granted. Saint Nick deals with the folly of basking in trendy spiritual fixes to life’s problems, while ignoring, even hating the hard-won progress of Western society.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What projects are you currently working on?

Author: There’s been interest for my flying memoir—American Sky. And there’re two novels—Mock Court and Giants on the Horizon. For the memoir I do have an agent, Maryann Karinch of The Rudy Agency.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

Author: I’ve been a pilot for 35 years, flying everything from 60 mph J-3 Cubs to 600 mph jets. Recently, I took an early-out to concentrate on my writing.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

Author: Both components are necessary for anything I write. My research on Black Elk is still continuing as I learn more about him. Michael Steltenkamp whose first book on Black Elk filled in the holy man’s years as a Christian has a second one coming out this fall.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you come up with your title?

Author: Black Elk was baptized Nicholas Black Elk in 1904. The man was a gift-giver his entire life. The title, Saint Nick, was perfect.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What books have influenced you the most?

Author: Every writer I’ve ever read has had an influence, but lately it’s Dean Koontz, especially his Odd Thomas and Frankenstein series. I enjoy Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, and love Shakespeare.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

Author: Dog Ear Publishing out of Indianapolis. All the good things I read about them were true—professional with a great finished product and a dedicated team.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Tell us a little bit about your book.

Author: Saint Nick is about a man who has forgotten how to love his own people, his own traditions.  Paul discovers that the Christian faith he’s disparaged since high school was embraced by his Indian hero, who spent the second half of his life as a devout Catholic. This realization reverberates throughout the story. Paul’s redemption is to be found in the traditions of his own people, not in another culture’s belief system.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What inspired you to create a work of fiction?

Author: I was in Jakarta, Indonesia for a month and very homesick. A few hours before a flight to Hong Kong I had been on the phone with a close friend back in the states. We discussed the need for a modern day Scrooge tale, not just a rehash of the same plot line in a modern setting.

Once off the phone I started thinking about past Christmases and even dreams I had remembered and recorded.  My reflections led me to Black Elk’s conversion to Catholicism, a fact I had only recently discovered. When I remembered that he had been baptized on December 6, the feast of Saint Nicholas, I knew I had found the perfect spirit guide to lead a miserable lawyer back to a life of hope and promise.

To learn more about the book and Author, please visit – http://www.fredtribuzzo.com/