Writing a book, even the best of them, does not go very far without publicity. Interviews like this one with Kate Delaney on America Tonight expands an author’s reach outside of his established circle of followers and fans.

Interview with Kate Delaney on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXD2UOLDQvE.

Interviews are part of an author’s life and are always approached with a degree of uncertainty. Will the equipment work? Can I make the interview on time? Will the weather knock out my phone? Can I understand the host, and can she or he understand me? More questions as the moments approach, and finally the telephone call arrives and you are, for better or worse, on air with the world and with an audience and host that you may not know.

The typical parts of a radio interview are first identification. Who and what is being talked about? Then the author is asked to describe his book. A frequent follow-up question is how did the author come up with the concept? Sometimes a question about the writing process itself and almost always what the author hopes that the reader takes away from the book? The interview concludes with a statement on where the book can be purchased and in what formats.

You can hear the interview at:
https://soundcloud.com/kated-294710598/hovey-smith/s-JT64ZxoR8pH?si=55d75e8c35dd4ab294bd14756d339fd2&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing.

Because of some connection problems related to the storms that we have been having here in Central Georgia this year, the interview was running late by the time we began, and I was a bit flustered by that time. This was not my best interview but was adequate.

Reviewer Mark Helsey of the U.S. Review of books found much to like in my novel, “Until Death Do You Part: An Americal Family Meets Their Sicilian Cousins.” Feeling an apparent need for a critic to be critical of the works he reviews, he found few grammatical errors (Try to write a write a 400-page book without any, if you think that it is easy.) and at times he thought I added too much information and on other occasions not enough. He concluded, “Readers who enjoy a skillful handling of settings and atmosphere will find this work resonates with their tastes. Also, those who like a good adventure with a nice bit of action focused on relatable characters in unusual situations should find this novel an enjoyable read.

The complete review appears below:

book review by Mark Heisey
“Frank took the gun from Roger, slapped in another magazine, pointed it towards the car, and gave it a burst of bullets. The screams stopped.”

The Calase family is going to Sicily to see relatives they have never met. Robert and Nancy, along with Robert’s brother William, are taking their children back to where their family came from a generation ago. They are bringing their daughter Mary, who works as a hairdresser downtown with William, and their sons, Frank and Roger. Roger is a failed portrait painter who just broke up with his girlfriend in San Francisco and is heading back to the family home in Louisiana. Frank is a Marine, grounded from flying due to injuries, who has learned while on his way home for leave that his wife filed for divorce. Although the Caleses suspect that the Sicilian branch of the family may be involved in some illegal activities, they don’t imagine that they are a major part of the Sicilian mafia. Amidst growing bloodshed, Luigi, also known as the Claw, plans to marry two of the young Sicilian ladies to the American brothers as a show of strength to the other mafia families as well as to get them out of the country and away from bloodshed. And Luigi is not a man to disappoint.

Smith is an accomplished writer, and it shows in this work. His sentences are well-written with few grammatical errors, and his pacing feels natural. Smith also does due diligence when it comes to researching the people, places, and items he places in the novel. His attention to detail is evident. The English Patient, by Michael Ondaajte, is a novel that stands out partly because of the impeccable sense of place the reader experiences. Smith’s book is similar in tone. The locations, history, food, architecture, and culture of the Sicilians described in the novel transport the reader to the Italian island. Particularly notable is Smith’s passion for writing about food. The reader can see, smell, and practically taste some of the meals served in the novel. Another interesting parallel is how both branches of the family are very loyal to those within them and have a code of honor, even if the two branches operate very differently. There is a nice tension built between the family ties that bring the groups together and the moral/criminal differences that drive them apart. Many readers will find themselves both liking the Sicilian branch of the family and fearing the harm they may inflict upon the Caleses.

There is a lot to like in this overseas adventure: mafia battles, undercover agents, family ties, blood feuds, and a good sense of place. However, there are times when the book seems to include too much educational detail. There are also points where the plot complications feel too easily and quickly solved in a work where taking time for more information is paramount. Still, this book has a broad appeal. Readers who enjoy a skillful handling of setting and atmosphere will find this work resonates with their tastes. Also, those who like a good adventure with a nice bit of action focused on relatable characters in unusual situations should find this novel an enjoyable read.1

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Every author thinks that his novel is the best that was ever written as over several years he may have put all of his energies in writing what he thinks is the perfect book. Book review companies like Kirkus serve the useful function of providing an unbiased look at the book as they evaluate the work from their own mindset of what that “perfect novel” should be and how it should read, which is not necessarily the same as the author’s vision. As a writer, Professional Geologist, hunter, cook, and outdoor guy, I wrote Until Death Do You Part as the book I would like to read filled with facts and local insights something in the manner that Michener wrote in his epic novels like Hawaii. To expand on some points I included footnotes which the reviewer found more distracting than helpful as they “insert the author into the story, explain his writing choices, and promotes his other works.” To a degree, I agree, and the footnotes were dropped in Fleet Cooper’s excellent audio rendition of the book, which is also now available from Amazon and other sources, and likewise footnotes do not appear in the screenplay.

The anonymous review appears below. I do not know if this was written by a man or woman, but I think I may know why some elements in the book turned the reviewer off.

Kirkus Review

What starts as an innocent tour of Italy turns into a dramatic dash to save a family in Smith’s novel.

By the early 2000s, the Italian-American Calsase family is two generations removed from their European roots, so they make travel plans to go across the sea to visit distant relatives. The two brothers of the family are both moving on from failed relationships. In Italy, the story begins with a once-powerful Mafia family in a weakened state. Unbeknownst to the Americans, they’ve had to deal with a spate of arrest and a vendetta murder, which have left the family’s new leader, Luigi, desperate to show his family’s strength but also to keep them safe. He hatches a plan to quickly marry of Cecelia, his daughter – who’s grieving her recently killed childhood friend Davide – and Angelica, his feisty niece, to the American brothers. The plan sets in motion a dramatic series of events that imperil the lives of everyone involved. Over the course of this novel, Smith presents realistic settings by offering painstaking details of local food, both in Louisiana and in Italy; for example, he pays considerable attention to the preparation of wild game for the wedding feast. What’s unrealistic is how the story hinges on the unlikely arranged marriages, which is especially distracting in a story set in the early 2000s. The treatment of the novel’s female characters is also problematic; for example, when one of the brothers asks Luigi which women is his intended, Luigi answers, “No difference. Choose!” and nobody seems bothered by this. Some pains are taken to present Angelica as independent and career-minded, but they’re undermined by constant references to her sex drive. Another distracting choice is the unconventional use of footnotes, which insert the author into the story, explain his writing choices, and promotes his other works.

A gastronomically descriptive but unevenly executed work of crime fiction.

I think that the reviewer did a masterful summary of the plot and did point out many of the favorable aspects of the story, such as, “The plan sets in motion a dramatic series of events.” What I think turned this reviewer off was my references to a lot of “guy stuff” like cars, guns, food, and engineering which I found interesting; but she apparently saw as only slowing down the action. I believe she was looking for something more like a screenplay where a novel is cut down to its action components which are piled onto each other to present as constant a series of action events as possible while viewing significant cultural details only as passing flashes on the screen.

In my novel I wanted to do more than that. I take the reader on a tour of the Southwestern U.S. from California to Louisiana, and expose them to the local history and culture as one of the sons tries to struggle home with “The Busted Beast, ” an old International Scout II that he, his brother, and father had rebuilt. On his trip he samples a homemade tamali the size of a dinner plate, a goat curry, seafood, and picks up crawfish for the family’s reunion dinner, which is to celebrate his brother’s return from combat in Iraq. That brother contributes to the novel’s gastronomic events by shooting a wild boar and making a version of Brunswick Stew that figures in the novel as a vehicle to carry poison to be served during the wedding feast. The culinary climax of the novel is the slicing and serving of the wedding cake in which different layers contain combinations of fruits and nuts native to the island – something not equaled by the Pope’s pastry chefs in Rome in size or complexity.

Other vehicles that play significant parts in the novel are a Fiat 500 which two Italian undercover agents rework and have painted in the manner of a donkey-drawn wedding cart from the 1500s, a red Ferrari driven by Luigi’s feisty niece, and a variety of Mercedes touring cars and sedans. Many of these vehicles are involved in a dramatic race to safety down a series of steep switchbacks while being fired on by turn-coat police.

I like my guns and knives too. As I build knives, I made the wavy-bladed knife shown on the cover that also plays a significant part in the novel, and discuss several others. I also discuss in some length the Colt 1911, Walther PPKs, Thompson Submachinegun, and what was once an expensive guns designed for shooting live pigeons which has now become a cut-off shotgun used by a childhood friend to kill Davide in order to sustain his family’s honor by completing a 200-year vendetta. This horrible event is the final straw in a lifetime of blood and murder that strengthens the feelings of Cecilia and Angelica that they must leave the island if they are to have a life, even if it means marrying two men they have never met.

I think that the reviewer bonded with Angelica and strongly felt that I had done my character a disservice by letting her agree to an arranged marriage, which others, say of Indian or Middle-Eastern extraction, have no problems with.

Although I have no talent in that direction, I also like the visual arts, particularly painting. This is the reason that two of the characters are painters – one of the brothers and Luigi, The Claw. By coincidence, both like to paint with old mineral-based pigments. Roger, the younger brother, assist Luigi in completing “his great work” which is a heroic sized painting of “The Death of Archimedes,” and in doing so forms a strong bond between him and his future father-in-law who might one day kill him should he dishonor the family which he is now about to join.

The novel comes to a realistic conclusion that invites further investigation of some of the characters and their lives before and after this life-altering family vacation in later works.

Press releases for books and movies are a bit different from those produced for the business world. The purpose of the author’s or agent’s press release is to immediately attract the reviewer’s interest and hold it until he has read the entire page. These are short, typically one-page or less, typically without photos or illustrations, and depend on the power of the words to compel the reader onwards as he learns about the key features of the novel, screenplay, or movie; and only incidentally about the author who wrote it or the firm that produced it. If the press release reads too much like an ad for the author or production company, it looses power, waste the reviewer’s time, and is likely to be immediately tossed.

The following release about my novel fits nicely on one page and with a little attention to typology can make a handsome document that will attract attention and tell the reviewer exactly what he or she needs to know while provoking curiosity about the novel.

Quantum Discovery 

Announces new Sicilian Adventure-Romance 

Bravery, blood, and bullets mixed with lust and love are features of Until Death Do You Part: An American Family Meets Their Sicilian Cousins when a Louisiana family’s vacation in Sicily turns deadly when they arrive on Monday and are informed that their two sons are to be married on Friday or none will leave the island alive. A potential Mafia war has caused Luigi, The Claw, to want to get his daughter and niece out of the country, and a chance visit of this American family with unattached sons provides the opportunity to send them to the United States. Frank, a divorced Marine Captain with PTSD and his failing artist brother, Roger, agree to wed “two of the fairest flowers of the island” and accept 100,000 euros a year to support their new brides They have second thoughts when they discover they are marrying into one of the most powerful Mafia families in Sicily. As they visit Sicily’s historic sites, they are attacked by a rival mob. Wanting out, they accept a plan hatched by an Irish priest and their gay uncle to be seen by their prospective brides naked in bed with two gay strippers in hopes that the women will call off the wedding.  This wedding has also captured the attention of the FBI and the Italian Anti-Mafia Association who are watching the situation to possibly prevent a union between American and Sicilian Mafia families. Lust ultimately yields to love, and the Americans agree to continue with the wedding, however brief their wedded lives might be.  

Prize winning author Wm. Hovey Smith is a Professional Geologist noted for his 20 outdoor and business books. He developed this novel after five years of research including a trip to Sicily where he gathered much of the information used in the novel. He employs his knowledge of geology, architecture, art, history, business, and the outdoor world to create a novel that not only tells an appealing story, but also highlights Sicily’s 3,000 years of history and culture. He has also completed a screenplay which is being marketed to Hollywood.  

Quantum Discovery aids authors in self-publishing and marketing their books to traditional publishers, TV, and movie industries. For additional information contact agent Calvin Frost.  

                                                                                                Quantum Discovery 

                                                                                                501 W. Broadway, Suite 800 

                                                                                                San Diego, CA 29101 

                                                                                                (888) 755-6875 

Good novels, particularly those with a variety of domestic and international settings require time, sometimes years, to research and write. In the case of “Until Death Do You Part: An American Family Meets Their Sicilian Cousins,” the germ of a story originated five-years-ago when I met a family of Sicilian origin in Louisiana who had just returned from Sicily and a visit to other members of their family, some of whom had historic Mafia connections. Subsequently, I met a family in Mississippi who had attractive sons who were having martial difficulties. While working on my line of outdoor books, I mentally tossed around a plot that would combine these two families’ experiences into a single story.

It would not be much of a story if I told a travel story about where they went, saw the sights, and returned. For a novel to happen there had to be factors regarding motivation, characters, crises, some climatic event, and a resolution. Ultimately some 70 characters were involved in the story, but initially I had only the Louisiana family that I knew nearly nothing about. I had to make the family diverse, which they turned out to be. One of the sons I decided would be a Marine Captain, an ex-flying officer who had been retrained as a forward observer and deployed during the second Iraq War where he participated in calling in an air strike and was exposed to some horrid sights. Then he experienced a mortar attack and when he was e-mailing home, he found a Dear John letter. His wife had left him for another man.

That gave me a back story for one of the characters. His younger, and slightly smaller, brother was an artist who had taken up painting using old pigments such as used in the 1400s. He was a perfectionist and could never finish anything, although he had talent. As the book opens we find him in San Francisco being thrown out of an apartment that he shared with his girlfriend because he could never make rent money. These events brought both of the adult brothers home, unattached, so they could join their parents, gay uncle, and sister on their trip. Roger, the younger brother, nurses an old Scout II, The Busted Beast, across the desert to Louisiana after having a series of interesting encounters with a transvestite named Dixie Crystal, two bare-breasted nuns and a giant of a guy that he thinks is going to leave him dead in the desert.

With the family thus assembled and on their way to Sicily what could I think of that would add interest to such a book? They had to meet some difficulties that were other than the ordinary things like losing passports, getting robbed, missing their flights, etc. I would need some device that would put them in mortal danger. The Mafia is a useful tool for that. What if both of the guys had to get married to two women they had never met or everyone in the family would be killed? My novel in set in 2004, and not the 1400s. How could I make this happen, and make up a convincing story as to why two women would ever agree to marry two strange men?

Something horrible had to happen. An innocent had to die. I felt bad about it because Davide was a handsome young guy who worked at the equivalent of an ice-cream shop and was beloved by all, including Cecilia, one of the brides-to-be, who was going to marry him. Davide takes his own life to end a 200-year-old vendetta. This tragic act convinces the women that they would be willing do do anything to leave this island of seemingly endless blood and death.

Now some characters are need to stir up the plot. I invented Luigi, called The Claw, who lost a hand during World War II and ultimately became an enforcer for one of the Mafia families. Because he had assisted The Resistance to the German occupation, he was given a job as an artist working for an American team during salvage archeology after the war. Luigi is the father of Cecilia and Uncle to Angelica,. He had raised them both since they were children. Because he fears another round of Mafia wars he wants to get these women out of the country, and by happenstance two Americans are to visit the island who are at the moment unattached. After some persuading, the two women agree to entertain the idea and he and Donna Carlos, the wife of an arrested Mafia Don, are already booking spaces and having the women’s dresses made before the Americans arrive.

Everyone is shocked when the men in the family are informed on Monday that the weddings will take place on Friday. He adds an annual support of 100,000 euros a year to sweeten the pot, and the men reluctantly agree to meet the two women who are described as “two of the fairest flowers of the island.”

As the novel progresses, ties of blood, lust, respect, and bullets bind the two parts of the family together, despite the determined efforts of Apachee, a rival Mob member who supervises several attempted shootings, a bombing, and poisoning. The family’s successful extraction from the island enlist the aid of a wild boar slain with a flintlock musket by one of the grooms, an Irish priest who has become overly fond of Grappa, two gay strippers, the FBI, Italian Antimafia Association, and the U.S. Air Force.

After the outline of the novel was mentally running through my head, I made an 11 day tour of Sicily to gather site information, gain a feel for the food, and have a good look at the island. This trip was of considerable aid in enriching the book with the essence of Sicilian culture. It helped me considerably when I was able to add Sicily to the locations in the book that I described. I have a series of YouTube videos that I took on my Sicilian trip.

This book is now available in softcover and e-book from Amazon.com and other sources worldwide, and as a 7-hour audiobook from Amazon and many other outlets.

My novel, screenplay, and movie project which began as Father of The Grooms, as a first draft e-book, then as a screenplay under the working title of Until Death Do You Part, has now evolved into a treatment called more simply Blood Ties. This treatment is a 9-page condensation of the 110 page screenplay derived from the 370 page novel – a distillation of a distillation.

Treatments are designed to be quick reads so that a studio reader or potential producer can quickly decide if he or she would like to spend the time reviewing the entire script. The quicker, and easier, the decision can be made to option the script or pass it on for a more complete review the better for all concerned. From looking at the treatment the decisions are made:

A. Is this the kind of movie that I want to make at this time? Perhaps the studio has done three sports-related movies in the past two years and wants something else.

B. Does the story work. Is the plot set up so that events logically follow? No white-horsed hero needs to appear from nowhere to rescue the characters.

C. Are the characters diverse and appealing? Men and women of different backgrounds and ages need to have significant rolls.

D. Is it within the studio budget? A small studio might produce a $4,000,000 film, but not one that will cost ten times that amount.

E. Does the project offer visual appeal? Not often seen areas that are either built up or natural are desirable.

F. Is the project special-effects heavy? These add-ons are often very expensive.

G. Can it be filmed in a time-efficient manner? Films that take the characters through changing seasons require moving actors and or sets or planning to film throughout a year or more.

H. Does the movie somehow tell the viewer something significant about the human condition? What is the point of the movie.

The treatment is designed to quickly relay all this information in its sections which would include:

A. The working title, author, and date.

B. The Logline (A one-line description of the movie)

C. The principal characters.

D. A synopsis of the movie’s scenes which in tightly written paragraphs describes the characters actions and locations sufficiently so that the reader can follow the plot and how the characters face their challenges.

Although I know my characters very well and the details of the novel’s plot, working up the treatment took two days of writing to produce a document that I was satisfied with that met the conditions that it be in present tense, very tightly written, and describe the scenes sufficiently so that the reader could visualize the locations. There were times when I mentally wanted to include material that was in the book, but had been cut from the screenplay. While it would have been possible to write the treatment from the book, I already had the screenplay, and used it as the basis of my treatment.

While scripts are rigid in their formatting, treatments are not. I read a number of treatments on line and found them to be of different lengths, formats, and styles; although all had the same elements. I could easily see the merit of doing the treatment first , then writing the screenplay instead of the other way around. Another writer using the elements of the story would have produced a different treatment.

The significant points are that the treatment be fast to read, clearly show the progression of the story and character arcs, and be as brief as possible. Quoted passages are generally discouraged as are pictures. They have their place, but are best used to construct storyboards. Long passages describing motives, relationships, and settings are discouraged. The characters, their actions, and the locations are more significant.

This treatment is available on request to studio readers and representatives.

As in the popular movie series, the published draft novel, Father of the Grooms, has been transformed into a screenplay, Until Death do You Part, and will appear first as an Audio Book under that title with the softcover to follow. From a writer’s point of view, the leap from novel to screenplay necessitated radical changes to convert a 400 page novel to a 110 page screenplay. This exercise was much more than selecting and cutting content, although that certainly occurred. The difference between the screenplay and novel involved changes in formatting, tenses, and rearrangements of sections to provide a more gripping start to the movie and have it build towards a satisfying climax.

At present, the screenplay is in its seventh iteration after receiving feedback from as many screenwriting contest. This process has much improved the screenplay. Among the major improvements were adding a well-defined villain at the opening of the first act as well as tension-building elements throughout the screenplay. Not only was this feedback used to improve the screenplay, it was also used to improve the novel which was undergoing its own transformation.

The title of the novel was changed to Until Death Do You Part to more nearly reflect the screenplay’s contents and the text sent in for professional editing. In turn, this corrected text has been sent to ListenUP Productions in Atlanta, for conversion into an audiobook which will be released later this year. This followed the simultaneous release of my last business book, Make Your Own Job: Anytime, Anywhere, At Any Age, in late 2020 in both softcover and audio formats. The novel as an audio book offers more challenges that the business book because of its mix of characters of different ages, sexes, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. These include two adult brothers, the heros of the novel, who have different personalities and outlooks toward life. They along with their father, mother, sister, and gay uncle make a trip to Sicily to reconnect with their Italian roots for the first time in three generations. Unknown to them, their family is one of the most powerful Mafia families in Italy, and because of their own needs, the Sicilian side of the family needs to get to women out of the country and use some not so delicate persuasion to have the two sons marry two women that they had never even heard of.

The Sicilian side of the family is run by a retired enforcer who has returned to oversee the family’s operations after the Don and his Segundo have been arrested because of information provided by a rival gang in Naples. This threatens a Mafia war and he seeks to get his daughter and niece safely out of the country by marrying them to these visiting Americans who “are given an offer that they cannot refuse.” With many misgivings, all agree to the wedding. The rival gang sends down a crew to prevent this wedding at all cost and a cat-and-mouse game starts with four attempts being made to kill various members of the wedding party. Father Flanagan, an Irish priest who is to perform the ceremony, elicits the aid of two gay male strippers to seen by the prospective brides in bed with the two grooms in hopes that the brides can have the wedding called off, but nothing doing. “A contract is a contract,” and the wedding will proceed as planned. All of this is successfully resolved in the screenplay and novel.

The characters mentioned and many more who have supporting parts will make it particularly tough for a single voice actor to preform. I look forward to receiving the reads from the three voice actors who will audition for the part. After the publication of the audiobook, I will make another round of changes before publishing the novel as a softcover.

From wooden model, to soft steel, to the best of Alabama Damascus combined with a heavily figured olive wood from his native Sicily, Luigi The Claw’s wavy bladed prop knife has been finished. This knife will be featured on the cover of my novel, Father of the Grooms, and in the movie. The knife appears several times in the plot, but is never used except as a weapon of intimidation. Perhaps the director will have a different view of that, but in the book no one is butchered by it. We have some shot, burned alive, crashed, and blown up; but there is no dicing and slicing. The knife, with its owner, is buried in the Sicilian soil from which both were derived.

Luigi was orphaned during World War II, participated in actions against the Germans and lost his left hand during a bombing. In recognition of his service to the Allies, he was given a job with American archaeologists who were conducting salvage operations in Sicilian cities where modern buildings had been destroyed and exposed traces of the island’s classical cultures. With 17 invaders going back 3,000 years, each spade of earth revealed something of significance that the archaeologists were attempting to recover, describe, and depict in their learned publications. These publications required illustrations, and it was discovered that Luigi had a natural talent for drawing. While working with the Americans he was taught to draw their finds as well as do more elaborate street sketches where the buildings and sights were reconstructed in charcoal, watercolors, and oils. Even with only a single hand and a stub, he could draw and paint better than many with years of formal training.

He became particularly interested in the ancient weapons with which so may hundreds of thousands of his countrymen were killed by Carthaginians, Romans, Normans, Arabs, and 13 other invading cultures over its long history. He chose as a symbol of Sicilian resistance a wavy bladed bronze knife that was so feared by the Greeks that they considered it “unfit for civilized warfare,” and forbade its manufacture. He had it made by a bladesmith in Venice using a water-powered power hammer than had been making weapons and armor since the 1400’s.

He selected as raw materials iron and steel made from various weapons used during the numerous sieges of Syracuse including the one where the town’s most famous citizen, Archimedes was slain. One of his life goals was to do a museum-grade heroic-size painting of the death of Archimedes which he, with help, completes during the novel. With the steel and iron beat into a Damascus blade and handled with olive wood, Luigi felt as if this weapon was a real part of his culture and when attached to his stub, part of himself – ready to attach or defend as necessary.