How did you become a writer?

In the 6th grade I failed to complete the required reading for a book report, so I concocted something, don't recall exactly what, and got a B+. So I figured I could write. My next writing adventure was in high school, when I joined the student newspaper as a reporter and ended up as managing editor. As was reinforced by my college experience, I found the managing editor actually runs things while the editor does long lunches. Despite being managing editor at the college daily I gravitated towards writing rather than editing for much of my career.
Not that I am adverse to long lunches.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Oddly, for someone who has spent a career writing non-fiction, the author whose prose I admired the most when starting out was John le Carré, and I recall telling a friend in a burst of youthful hubris that I could do what le Carré did. Of course I could not, but his skill with language was something to aspire to. In college my enthusiasm for newspapers was mightily encouraged by the late, great Howard Ziff at the University of Massachusetts, who placed journalism's importance within the context of history, governance and democracy, lessons that have withstood the test of time. George Orwell’s work was also a major inspiration, and once I met Seymour Hersh, who was friendly to a young journalist. Despite a career in newspapers, I always wanted to write books, which I finally did after taking a buyout.

When and where do you write?

At a desk, in a home office, on a computer. I work newspaper reporter hours, starting from about 10 am with a break in the afternoon and ending between 6 and 8, depending on how the work is going. As I write non-fiction, the writing is almost always interspersed with reporting, as no matter how much one does before sitting down, new questions constantly arise. I couldn't do what I do – within a reasonable timeframe and without research assistants – if not for the internet. 

What are you working on now?

Just finished my second book, published in May 2021 by Simon & Schuster, “The Guns of John Moses Browning,” a social history/biography of the man whose inventions, as my elevator pitch goes, started World War One and won World War Two. I’m casting about for another topic sufficient to sustain my interest for three years…all suggestions welcome.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not in the usual sense. I do struggle on how to structure complex non-fiction timelines, say where an event in 1900 only becomes significant in 1920, while in the meantime I need to write about events in 1910. As my editor at S&S, Rick Horgan, told me, you need to keep a linear timeline or else risk loosing the reader. It was a struggle but I figured out how.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Not sure who gave it, or whether I figured it out myself, but you need the ability to see what is actually on the page, not what you think is on the page. That requires the brutal ability to be a candid critic of yourself. And that means tossing pages and pages of supposedly finished text, and much research, upon realizing the approach you’ve taken isn’t working. For my latest book I spent much time researching and writing about a young man who used a lightweight flintlock “squirrel gun” to track and shoot the “last” wild deer in Indiana. (Yes, deer were almost extinct 120 years ago). Yet it just didn’t fit the chapter and I ended up using one sentence from all that work.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Re-write. And then re-write again. And once more. Don’t let anyone tell you no if, after an honest self-critique, you believe you are right.

Bio: I grew up in Medford, Mass., went to UMass Amherst, majored in Journalism/English, barely graduated, worked on the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton Mass., the Wilmington Delaware News-Journal, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, where I did long investigative pieces, daily reporting, political reporting, and was an editor for a few years, which helped with my writing. My first book was “Tommy Gun Winter,” about a once-infamous 1930s Boston criminal gang: an MIT grad, a minister’s daughter, and two of my relatives (first cousins twice removed.) Its on option to the left coast, but we’ve all heard that before! Then the John Browning book. It’s pretty good. Actually, both are! :)