My Lost Hollywood Interview

Over two years ago, I did an interview in Los Angeles at a Hollywood hotel. It was the first time I was asked to do a video interview, and I was excited about it.

I drove up from San Diego and somehow managed to get a great parking space in back of the place. I cinched up my tie and looked for my contact person in the lobby. 

She took several of us up to a hotel suite set up as a makeshift studio. One part of of the suite was set up with the camera man and the interviewer; the other part was set up as a waiting area (green room) with snacks and drinks and a half dozen authors.

One of the authors who was also a booking agent was holding court when I arrived. Her project was about Spiritual Cleansing or something like that. She sucked all of the oxygen out of the room until it was time for her interview. 

Then there was the math professor from Cal Poly who was promoting a college textbook he had written. He launched into a discussion of chaos theory.

One by one, the others did their interviews in the other room and were led out by that exit. Finally, it was just me and a solidly-built, blonde, thirty-something woman waiting for our turn. 

"Who are you? She asked me.

"Oh, I'm Joe Nobody."

She laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. What's your book about?"

I gave her the Reader's Digest version of my novel, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel, and my business card.

"Tell me about your book," I said.

"It's about my experiences in ladies' roller derby."

"Fascinating."

That helped explain her general muscle tone and solid build. She went on to say that she appeared in the feature film, Whip It, with Ellen Page, Kristen Wiig, and Drew Barrymore. Her name was Ari Graynor.

Now it was her turn to leave and be interviewed. I was alone.

Finally! Mine must have been the last shoot of the day. I settled into the chair and prepared to talk about my novel when the interviewer asked me about converting a novel into a stage play. 

What? He was either tired, unprepared, or had me mixed up with someone else. Anyway, I made the best of it. "That's show business," I thought.

I left feeling like I had wasted my time. When the producers didn't get back with me, I felt that the interview had gone badly, so I didn't follow up. Then today, it appeared in my gmail with an apology for letting it slip through the cracks. For what it's worth, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rZBXZly8A

Gregory A. Fournier Speaks about Zug Island on the Michael Dresser Show

On Friday, April 19, 2013, I did a web radio interview for the Michael Dresser Show. It has been a while since I had done any live Zug Island promotion, but with summer coming, I thought it might be a good time to let readers know that Zug Island makes a great vacation read.

Despite its serious subject matter, race relations during the summer of the Detroit Riots, Zug Island is an often humorous account of a college dropout and an intercity young man who fall in and out of rhythm on Detroit's mean streets to discover that the face of racism comes in every shade of color.

Zug Island is a blue collar, coming of age, buddy novel which tells a slice of history much neglected in the telling of this horrible period of Detroit's history. It's been almost fifty years since July 23, 1967, and the city has yet to recover from its conflagration.


Amidst all the devastation, an unlikely friendship endures which suggests that hope for the city's recovery lies with its people and not its politicians.

Listen to my latest Zug Island web radio interview (15 minutes):
http://michaeldressershow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Greg-Fournier-4-19-2013.mp3

Jenny Hilborne - Writer of Mysteries and Psychological Thrillers

I met Jenny Hilborne at a book fair in Solana Beach in April of 2011, when we were sharing a booth and promoting our debut novels. We were both new born to the green wood of publishing.

Jenny is a Brit from Swindon in Wiltshire, England, who has lived in Southern California for the past fifteen years. She still maintains her roots in England, but she now carries a subdued British accent.

She and I hit it off when I told her the subject of my next writing project, a true crime history of the John Norman Collins murders of 1967-69. This time I would try my hand at non-fiction, and I've been buried by my research ever since.

In the meantime, Jenny had just published Madness and Murder, had No Alibi close to publication, and was planning her third novel, Hide and Seek. She has since completed and published her fourth novel, Stone Cold. She is a virtual writing machine.

So far, most of her novels take place in her favorite city, San Francisco, and people familiar with the City by the Bay will recognize the locales. But Jenny went home to the United Kingdom for six months to do research on Stone Cold to enhance its verisimilitude.


"I didn't want to be stereotyped as only writing about the West Coast," Jen said. "I needed to draw inspiration from home, but it was a challenge getting used to British English again." 


Jen says that she enjoyed her research for Stone Cold which got her out of the house and away from her computer screen. While in England, she visited the Cotswolds and Oxfordshire, the settings featured in her latest book.

Check out Jenny's blog: http://jfhilborne.wordpress.com/

Check out her Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Jenny-Hilborne/e/B003YYF5F4/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1365958456&sr=1-2-ent  

Gregory A. Fournier Zug Island Web Radio Interview

On Friday morning, I will be doing my first Skype interview on web radio, and I'm excited about it. There is a call-in contest where you can win one of two copies of Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel. The number to call is (646) 595-4326 - 1:00 PM Eastern time - 10:00 AM Pacific time. http://blogtalkradio.com/hollischapmanshow. 

This should be fun. Afterwards, the interview can be found on a continuous loop by accessing the Hollis Chapman Show archives or by running the link on my blog post next week. Hope you can join me.

Talk Radio - Why Not?

Looking through a newsletter from my publisher, Wheatmark.com, I discovered a free radio booking resource called Radio Guest List. Once you sign-in with them, they send out a daily listing of radio outlets requesting guests to interview for a wide range of topics.

Depending on the program's target audience, they are looking for authors, musicians, lifestyle commentators, financial planners, and "experts" in many areas. This website simply lists stations that need on-air talent. Once you find a request for a quest spot that is in your area of expertise, you contact their booking agent. That's it!

If they are interested, they will email you back to make arrangements. Within a week, I have been booked for two interviews to discuss my novel - Zug Island - one is for a show called Beef Stew, and the other is for a program named Sayin It Plain.

Other than readers, what new authors desperately need are publicity and exposure. This website provides both for free. Take advantage of it. Good luck!

www.radioguestlist.com

Detroit Shout Out 1 - Duffield Public Library

Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "You Can't Go Home Again." I just returned from Detroit, and I wanna tell you, he was wrong. After more years than I care to admit, I flew into my hometown for a Zug Island mini-book tour and was warmly greeted with courtesy by everyone I came in contact with.

Detroit's Duffield Public Library on West Grand Blvd. was my first stop. It was 100 degrees outside and even warmer in the almost 100 year old building. An African-American woman in her fifties, walking on a wooden cane, braved the heat and climbed a flight of stairs where it was even warmer, just to hear me speak about the Detroit Riots of 1967.

I'm not going to kid you, this woman took me to school on the Detroit Riots. She was fascinating as she reminisced about being a twelve year old girl at the time.

"I was standing on my front porch watching people running towards the stores and others riding new bicycles in the opposite direction. I ran in the house and yelled up the landing to my mother. 'Mom! Why are all those kids riding new bikes?' She came down and looked out the front door; then she locked it. It stayed that way for a week. I remember it. It was hot, like today."

When my presentation was over, we kept talking as we carefully walked down the stairs and the ramp onto the steamy boulevard. My rental car was parked right in front of the library. "Can I take you anywhere?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I have a bus pass."

"I have new air conditioning and comfortable seats."

I think I made a friend. She needed to go across town to the main branch of the post office on Fort St., and she told me wonderful stories about the city as we drove through Detroit's almost deserted streets. She pointed out the new Motown housing development with streets named after Motown acts and stars. She told me about the gambling palaces that cleaned out some of the slums and then fleeced the people.

"You know," she said, "there are more churches in Detroit than anyplace."

"No. I didn't know that," I said as we arrived at the post office.

She thanked me for the ride and the conversation. I hadn't felt this connected to the city in over forty years. I am sad to say that I don't even know the lady's name. I hope she likes my novel.