My Writing Story

All the way back in high school, I was writing bits and pieces of stories and poems.

In fact, one of my proudest moments in high school was winning a city-wide poetry contest.

I went to Vanderbilt University and, one shouldn’t be surprised, I studied literature. In fact, I studied literature in two different languages–getting a double major in English and French.

I considered going to graduate school, but instead I went to law school after graduating from college.

Although I continued to write fiction on the sly, I didn’t take my writing seriously enough to make it a career or even part of a career. Instead, it remained a hobby.

Around 2000 or 2001, I decided to take the plunge and set up an online ghostwriting business. It was through that business that I met the Louisiana homicide detective who solved the murder case that was a major part of the Dead Man Walking book by Helen Prejean and the movie of the same name.

I was intrigued by the detective (who became and remains a great friend) and by how this case impacted not only the family of the victims of the killers, but also everyone else in the justice system, including him. Rather than taking on this writing project as a purely ghostwriting project, we determined to work together on the book, and that is what we did.

The book was originally published as “Loss of Faith,” and both the detective, Mike Varnado, and I are listed as co-authors. I had attended the Maui Writer’s Conference prior to the publication of the book and had been able to draw the interest of a well-known literary agent. Through working with her, I learned a lot of valuable lessons about  how traditional publishing works and why the current system that incentivizes self-publishing is much more attractive to new writers than it was at that time.

Anyway, after a number of disappointments trying to get the book purchased by a traditional publishing house, Mike and I decided to self-publish “Loss of Faith.” It was an exciting time for us and the book, and we weren’t surprised by how much the citizens of Louisiana were interested in our book. We sold a good number of books, and so we attracted the attention of a traditional, regional publishing house, Pelican Publishing.

After some discussion and negotiation, we were able to sell the rights to “Loss of Faith” to Pelican Publishing. The book was re-published under the name “Victims of Dead Man Walking.” It is available on Amazon.com and has received consistently high reviews.

I can still remember how exciting it was for me to walk into a Barnes & Noble (or was it a Borders) in Chicago on Michigan Avenue and seeing my book on the shelf in the True Crime section alongside books written by all the well-known true crime writers.

“Victims of Dead Man Walking” is in essence a personal memoir intertwined with a true crime story that I was able to put together and tell with great input from Mike, interviews with lawyers, a visit to Angola penitentiary and its death row, and a lot of reading of trial transcripts.

In the years after the publication of “Victims of Dead Man Walking” I found myself more and more involved in my law practice, letting my writing and ghostwriting career take a backseat.

But old itches sometimes come back and require being scratched. That is why I have re-started my writing and ghostwriting career.

I’m still a lawyer, but now I can say that I’m a writer, too.

Not only am I interested in finding great new projects to work on with writing clients, but I have a completed crime novel that I am revising and editing now and plan to have available for publication very soon.

Stay tuned.