Interview Harley Sachs

by Kowanda Stroud

1) To begin, will you tell us a little about yourself?

Though I majored in Creative Writing for a Master’s at Indiana University, I flunked the English literature orals and ended up with a Master of Arts for Teachers in--English lit!. My Creative Writing thesis, a novel, is in the US Army archives, but has never been published. I’m an old freelance writer, made my first sale (to Motor Guide) in 1957 and have about 1000 publications including novels, short stories, poetry, feature articles, newspaper columns and rants in letters to the editor. My freelance work for trade magazines segued into filler pieces and full articles for slick boating magazines and those gave me an idea for my first published book, “Irma Quarterdeck Reports,” nautical humor.

I took my GI Bill to Sweden where I met my wife. We have three daughters, all now middle aged women, which make me an oldie, gray, not golden. I didn’t see a book published until after I retired in 1986.

2) Please tell us about your newest release, The Mystery Club And The Serial Widow.

It’s not my newest, but the latest with Wings ePress. The Serial Widow is the fourth in the Mystery Club series. Each book seems to get a bit darker and the elderly ladies more and more like a sinister kabal. In this one I see them becoming villains. The serial widow is a very troubled woman with a tragic past and a problem with alcohol. She’s outlived four husbands and thinks she might snag a fifth, but her past is catching up with her as she moves into the Rose Plaza retirement building...

3) What inspired you to write this story?

I got the idea for the title. There’s lots about serial killers, but not widows, and I wanted to see what I could do with the idea.

4) Who were your favorite authors when you were young?

I loved adventure books like Dr. Doolittle but because of an unfortunate incident I was forbidden to check out new books, my favorite, and stopped reading until I got hooked by science fiction in high school. Then I read the classic Sci-Fi writers and was a huge fan.

5) Did their stories or styles influence you as a writer?

The most influential piece was a chapter by a sci-fi writer who said that a book is written in 800 word scenes, each leading to the next. Knowing that breaking a novel into short, connected bits was a revelation. Later I read Stevenson’s “Elements of Style” and learned about effective sentences.

6) What do you do in your spare time?

My wife and I like to go to movies. In the summer I fish and go sailing. We attend many lectures while in the city.

7) What has been your greatest challenge in writing?

My greatest challenge is selling the books. I make more on one newspaper column than I do in a year of royalties. Marketing books is terribly difficult.

8) How did you find your publisher?

My first publisher was Wescott Cove, a nautical niche publisher. I’d proposed a monthly column for boating magazines, written from the woman’s point of view, each month on a different boating subject, titled “Irma Quarterdeck Reports.” Two were published in a Canadian magazine but when they changed their format I took my list of columns to a couple of nautical book publishers. The second one, Wescott Cove, bought it. Wescott Cove was sold to Far Horizons which just brought out the second edition of Irma Quarterdeck Reports.

The second book, a collection of Jewish short stories, evolved after I’d published a few separate stories in The Jewish Calendar and Digest. Isaac Nathan publishers selected nine stories from my collection for “Threads of the Covenant.” When it went out of print I self published the whole collection of twenty-one stories at lulu.com, the online printer

9) Do you have a website and if so tell us about it?

My web site www.hu.mtu.edu/~hlsachs is non-commercial because it’s located at Michigan Technological University. It’s pretty crude, no cutesy stuff, so isn’t attractive, but it has links to my catalog and you can listen to two short stories the BBC broadcast.

10) What are your plans for promoting your book?

My editor at Northern Express newspaper always includes a link to my web site at the end of my columns. The backs of my business cards all carry a blurb for a book. I give away survival manuals with a sheet listing my books glued inside the back. I place free ads in newspapers around the country. Then there are news releases to newspapers. Sometimes I get a radio interview.

11) What advice would you give to writers?

Don’t quit your day job. Michener says a successful writer needs three things: talent, discipline, and luck. That means not waiting for your muse to inspire you, but to write, write, write. A true writer is obsessed. You must have patience, be willing to wait for rewards that may never come, and don’t pester the editors. There are 5 billion people in the world, all of them writers who think their stuff is greater than sliced bread and they are your competition. This is a very tough business.

12) What are you working on now?

I have an idea for a book about a war veteran, but it’s a difficult topic.

I must say this is one of the most interesting authors I have ever interviewed. Thank you Harley for sharing your lifes journey with us. Kowanda