HUNTING FOR TREASURE
I’ve been a professional writer now for more than a quarter of a century. (And a writer for even longer, ever since my parents bought me an Olympia electric typewriter for my thirteenth birthday.) But unlike most freelancers, who focus on one area of expertise throughout their careers, I’m always bouncing around from one subject to the next. Baseball. Natural history. Mystery stories. Science and technology. Children’s books.
People sometimes ask me what ties together all these varied subjects. I usually joke that I just have trouble concentrating on any one thing for long. But I think I’ve finally figured out the real reason. (Better late than never).
Everything I write feels like a treasure hunt. And what’s more fun than hunting for treasure?
When I put together my new Baseball: 365 Days and Grand Old Game, I spent weeks searching through the vast photo archives of Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, looking for the rarest, strangest, most revealing images I could find. Every time I found a photograph I knew I’d use, I felt like I’d come upon a gold nugget in a mine filled with them. And the same held true for uncovering the stories behind all those marvelous photos.
When I write my other nonfiction books, like
A Gathering of Wonders: Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History, the treasure is the perfect detail, the telling quote, the unique angle that will vividly bring to life a complicated subject. I love telling stories that few others have heard, and opening readers’ eyes to our remarkable world while I do so.
And when I create the crime stories I’ve been focusing on the past couple of years, I feel like I’ve discovered treasure when I come up with the twist ending—the moment that readers suddenly understand that I’ve been playing with them, setting them up for the story’s exciting climax. Read my story “The Big Five” in the new
Bronx Noir, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
I hope you enjoy my books and stories. Please feel free to contact me with any comments or questions, or just to tell me your own stories. Because those can be treasures, too.
I’ve been a professional writer now for more than a quarter of a century. (And a writer for even longer, ever since my parents bought me an Olympia electric typewriter for my thirteenth birthday.) But unlike most freelancers, who focus on one area of expertise throughout their careers, I’m always bouncing around from one subject to the next. Baseball. Natural history. Mystery stories. Science and technology. Children’s books.
People sometimes ask me what ties together all these varied subjects. I usually joke that I just have trouble concentrating on any one thing for long. But I think I’ve finally figured out the real reason. (Better late than never).
Everything I write feels like a treasure hunt. And what’s more fun than hunting for treasure?
When I put together my new Baseball: 365 Days and Grand Old Game, I spent weeks searching through the vast photo archives of Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, looking for the rarest, strangest, most revealing images I could find. Every time I found a photograph I knew I’d use, I felt like I’d come upon a gold nugget in a mine filled with them. And the same held true for uncovering the stories behind all those marvelous photos.
A Gathering of Wonders: Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History, the treasure is the perfect detail, the telling quote, the unique angle that will vividly bring to life a complicated subject. I love telling stories that few others have heard, and opening readers’ eyes to our remarkable world while I do so.
Bronx Noir, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
I hope you enjoy my books and stories. Please feel free to contact me with any comments or questions, or just to tell me your own stories. Because those can be treasures, too.