Q & A With Debut Author, Peter Salomon

Today I have a double treat for you. (1) I’m not going to bore you with my babble and (2) I have a very special guest visiting. My dear friend, Peter Salomon was kind enough to stop by BBE during his blog tour. Last week Peter launched his debut novel, Henry Franks, and it’s been getting some wonderful reviews. I had the pleasure of reading the first draft, and from page one I knew he had a hit on his hands.

Since Peter has been making the rounds on the blogosphere to promote his work, I thought I’d make this interview a bit fun. So...let’s get started.

Welcome Peter! I’m so glad you stopped. For those readers who don’t know who you are (gasp), let’s start with something simple. Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from? When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I was born and lived outside of New York City for the first 18 years of my life and with the exception of one year in Boston have lived in the south ever since. I was born in CT and raised in NJ and then moved to Atlanta for college and stayed in GA for a very long. Only recently have we been searching for a permanent place to live now that the kids are older. We did MA for a year and then New Orleans for three and now hope to stay for a very long time in Chapel Hill, NC. On the plus side, this has allowed the kids to see a great deal of the eastern US.
I had a brief flirtation in my early teens with being a doctor but that really didn't last all that long. I always wanted to be a writer, I just never really knew how to go about doing that so I've done a number of other jobs along the way. It's now much easier to find solid, helpful information to determine how to make a living through writing but when I was just starting out there was far less so I feel as though I had to stumble blindly for a very long time. Thankfully it seems to have worked out!

We’ve been friends for a long time and I’ve read a lot of your earlier works so I know what an amazing writer you are. Who would you say has most influenced you and your work?

At the top of the list would be my grandfather, Andre Scara Bialolenki, even though he was unpublished. He was a fantastic writer and wonderful man who encouraged and supported me so very much until he passed away. I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy novels, losing myself in the worlds they created. I have a great many fond memories of staying up all night
curled in a chair with Terry Brooks or Orson Scott Card or Frank Herbert. I was always one of those readers who would read anything but I definitely gravitated towards those two genres.

For a lot of people, the image of a writer is that of a recluse, hunched over their keyboard 24/7. Since we both know that’s not true, tell us what you do when you're not writing. Do you have any hobbies or interests?

With 3 kids? Seriously, though, my BA is in Theater and Film Studies so I have always had a soft spot for musical theater and films of any kind. I also enjoy photography even though I am not even half the photographer my father is.

As I mentioned, I’ve read Henry Franks and I have to say I was in awe at not only your imagination, but how detailed you were with the scientific end. For those who haven’t yet picked up the book, tell us more about it. What inspired you to write such an ‘out there’ book?

HENRY FRANKS is about a teenage boy who was in a car accident that killed his mother and left him horribly scarred, with no memory of his life before the accident. Everything he knows about himself is what his father has told him and, as the story progresses, he begins to wonder if his father has been telling him the truth. Plus there's a serial killer and a hurricane and a girl-next-door to keep things interesting.
I started writing the book from the father's point of view as he raised his son but quickly found that I was far more interested in the son's perspective so I started it again. I was drawn to the search for identity and wanted it to be a very small, almost claustrophobic sort of story, with very few characters and settings in order to amp up the 'creepiness' factor. It is YA Horror, after all.

You must be thrilled the book is out just in time for Halloween. Do you have any current projects you're excited about and can share with our readers?

At the moment I have been working on two new manuscripts (both YA) that I wrote while HENRY FRANKS was out on submission. Plus two (or three) picture books. The two YA manuscripts are both action/adventure type of stories that deal with similar identity issues as HENRY. Sort of.

For any new writers out there in need of advice, what would you tell them?

The best advice I ever received, from my grandfather, was just to keep writing. A blank page is pretty much useless (unless you're going for REALLY avant garde poetry...though I wouldn't recommend it). And learn to love revising...editing is your friend!

Well, I do like revising, so good advice. ;-) Now, open floor...is there anything else you’d like to say to my readers?

Just that I'm thrilled to be able to visit and can honestly say that I wouldn't be here, promoting the launch of my debut novel, without your help along the way in the editing/revising process.
Thanks!

It’s been my honor!
Thank you for stopping by.

To learn more about Peter and his work you can visit him at his website: http://www.peteradamsalomon.com/blog/
You can also catch him at Twitter and Facebook

Peter will also be stopping by for more questions, so feel free to ask him anything.
;-)