Latest / The Whitfield Report / TWR Monday | Terrence McCauley Unveils More Kennedy Conspiracies In New "CHICAGO '63" Novella

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TWR Monday | Terrence McCauley Unveils More Kennedy Conspiracies In New "CHICAGO '63" Novella · The Whitfield Report

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  Now broadcasting from the Next Gen. conservative studio in
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  sunny South Florida, bringing you the latest in politics,
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  current events and pop culture. This is the Whitfield Report
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  with Sam Whitfield. All righty folks, and welcome to
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  the Whitfield's Report Monday Edition.
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  Although we are recording this on a Thursday afternoon, by the
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  time you guys are either watching this and or listening,
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  it will be Monday. Nevertheless, happy to have you
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  here. My guest for this week's Monday
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  podcast is Terrance McCauley, who is a I don't want to just
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  say thrill author, because Terrance has ran in all sorts of
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  genres, some of which I wasn't even aware of.
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  You know what he was writing until I went on to his website
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  just about 15 minutes ago and looked at some of the books.
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  Although I did, I I read Chicago 63, which is what we're
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  primarily going to be talking about today.
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  But I did just buy the the university box set like.
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  A Yeah, they're for $0.99 now, yeah.
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  Yeah, so I bought the whole box set.
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  I think it was like $2.00 and I I I I only read the first
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  chapter of the first book last night, so I didn't get too far
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  into it. But I I finished Chicago 63 and
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  I loved it. And you know, Terence is a is a
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  great author just from the bit I've read, so I'm happy to have
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  him here. And Terrence, welcome to the
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  show. Hope you're doing well.
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  I am and thank you for having me here.
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  It's it's it's great to be with you tonight.
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  So thank you. Well, you know, I guess my my
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  first question is how did you start writing and publishing
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  like where did the spark begin for you?
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  You've had a pretty illustrious fear.
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  So how did it all get started? Yeah, it's like a roller coaster
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  and it still is like a roller coaster.
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  And I'm I'm pretty happy about that.
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  And I was blessed to get started on storytelling and writing at
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  an early age. I've, as I've said in other
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  places, I grew up with a bunch of unique storytellers.
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  In my family. I had two uncles that were
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  Catholic priests and pastors in New York City.
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  So the amount of odd people and and interesting stories that
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  they came across in their daily lives was always interesting to
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  hear around the dinner table. One of my uncle's was also the
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  chaplain at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women,
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  which is where a lot of the high profile female criminals would
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  go after they were convicted of murder or attempted murder.
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  So that was also interesting. And then I have an aunt who was
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  a nun who was a principal of an inner City High school in the
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  Bronx. So it was always a lot of
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  stories, a lot of characters floating around.
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  No names, of course, because a lot of this was was
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  confidential. But it was interesting from an
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  early age to see how people really were who were much older
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  than me and to get a glimpse of what life was like.
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  So I always had a knack and an and an ear for good
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  storytelling, and I cultivated it off and on throughout grammar
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  school and high school. Took a creative writing course
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  when I was in college, and I was shocked by how many people liked
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  it. So when I graduated college, I
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  took some of those Gotham Writers Workshop classes that
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  they had throughout the city and developed my talent that way by
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  workshopping ideas that I had. And getting 30 or 40 different
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  viewpoints of what I had written really made me a great writer of
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  in the fact that I understood the craft and that I understood
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  that not every good idea is a great one and not every idea
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  needs to be expressed. So I worked on a couple of
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  manuscripts on my own, Didn't really have any luck finding an
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  agent because quite frankly, the work probably wasn't strong
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  enough at that point. But then a friend of mine drank
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  coffee one day and on her the sleeve that she got from the
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  deli there was a one of those cardboard sleeves that said
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  search for their next great crime writer contest for court
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  TV. It was Court TV at the time.
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  Then it became Tru TV. So I submitted the manuscript I
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  had that I called Prohibition, and it beat out 200 other books
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  to win to search for the next great crime writer contest.
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  And I was over the moon. I was, I thought, this is great,
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  It's going to be published by Borders, which was only a
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  bookstore at the time, but they were thinking about getting into
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  publishing. HBO and Time Warner owned Tru TV
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  at the time, because by then it was Tru TV and I think they were
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  interested in possibly developing it.
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  I was so happy. Then what happened?
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  Borders closed, the deal was forgotten about, and I didn't
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  get anything published based on Prohibition at that time.
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  And so it was pretty low when that happened.
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  And that's important for beginning writers to understand
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  that just because something looks like it's going to break
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  your way, it doesn't really count until you've got all the
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  money in the bank, everything signed and the checks clear.
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  So people can promise you a lot and they can say a lot's going
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  to happen, but until it actually does happen, be guardedly
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  optimistic. I but I didn't let it stop me
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  from doing what I loved, which was writing stories and and
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  making sure I got better in my craft.
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  And I continued to write. I had a a bunch of books all
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  lined up when I met a publisher who said I've written I I've
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  read a lot of your your 1930s stuff but do you have a modern
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  day thriller in you? And I had an idea in my head
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  that I've been playing around with the whole time that I have
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  been writing other stuff. So I said yeah, let me give it a
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  shot. I wrote it in about six weeks
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  and that's what sympathy for the Devil became.
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  And the the words just flew out of me once I I set my mind on to
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  that track and I got it done very quickly.
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  After a couple of rewrites it hit the market and I have been
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  published ever since and I'm blessed to be able to say that.
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  Yeah, yeah. Your work is pretty prolific.
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  And also I'm assuming you're a native New Yorker.
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  So you know, living in New York like I I'm not a native, but
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  I've been to New York like 8 times within my life.
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  And I imagine you know that city is in particular is just a a
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  great place for storytelling just.
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  It is. Because you never know what's
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  going to happen at any given moment.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  It is definitely a dynamic place.
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  There's literally millions of different people going through
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  there, especially the island of Manhattan, every single day.
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  And I always, I always had a huge love of history and I had a
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  love of classic films. So when I wrote Prohibition and
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  then Slow Burn, it was because I loved, I also loved politics.
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  So I was able to merge all of my 3 loves together and create
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  something that was actually based in history.
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  And that was that was fantastic. And then I was able to use my
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  some of my knowledge of how government works when I started
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  my techno thrillers in the University series.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  So it's been it's been constantly an an evolution.
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  Yeah, well, I mean, I'm kind of, you know, I'm in the political
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  thriller genre too. That's kind of the genre I've
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  written in. And you know, I've heard your
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  name thrown. I hadn't really read you until,
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  you know, honestly. Chicago 63.
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  I interviewed Steve Stratton, who I know, you know, and I'm
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  also. Great.
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  Good friends with Eric Bishop and Eric was like, have you,
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  have you had Terrance on your podcast yet?
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  And I was like, no, do you think he would want to come on?
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  And you know, so I. Yeah, of course.
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  Eric's a great guy. No, he is.
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  So, you know, just thrilled to be able to talk to all these
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  different authors, so. They're a pretty approachable
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  bunch. You know, it's funny, you think
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  people who write this kind of stuff wouldn't be, But everybody
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  who has started out in this business remembers what it was
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  like to start out in it. No matter whether you've
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  exchanged great fame like Jack Carr, who's really awesome to
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  talk to and deal with. I interviewed him.
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  He's he's a great guy all the way down to people who've just
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  started out and and are still querying for their first book to
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  hit with an agent or a publisher.
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  It's we all started from the same place.
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  Very few haven't but most of us have.
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  So we understand it and and we spend so much of our time
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  creating in it by ourselves. It's nice to be able to share
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  some of our journey with us, especially when someone with
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  with somebody else, especially when people are interested in
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  it. Yeah yeah the The funny thing
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  about Jack cartoon is like I had been so I wrote a short story
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  back in 2014. I self published my gap year
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  between high school and and college.
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  And then I was I was going to write a sequel, but once I got
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  into college I just didn't have the time.
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  And then the terminal list actually was released, I think
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  my sophomore year of college, if I'm not mistaken.
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  I can't remember the timeline now, but anyway, I read that
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  when I was in college and that book I had grown up reading Tom
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  Clancy's book, but The Terminalist was the book that
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  kind of re sparked my interest in writing.
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  So I I promised once I got done with, you know, college, I would
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  go back and look at some of my old outlines and notes and write
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  something. And so I did just that and you
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  know, at the end of 2023, well, in July.
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  But yeah, I mean, Jack's a great storyteller.
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  And I mean, I I think he still has a, his career is, you know,
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  going to be quite prolific for the foreseeable future, I think.
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  I think so too, yeah. And he's, he's always looking
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  for a way to give back to the writing community in general,
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  but also people who are looking to write thrillers of any kind.
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  And he's he's really generous and quite frankly he doesn't
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  have to be and it's really great to see that he is.
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  Yeah, I I've, I've definitely gotten that impression from him.
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  But you know enough about Jack. We're here to talk about your,
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  you know, work. So I am curious.
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  You know, you've written crime fiction.
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  I I see that you've even written a few Westerns, which is
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  interesting. But I'm curious, what made you,
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  what inspired you to write this historical fiction, crime, not
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  novella with Chicago 63, because that's, you know, I think it's
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  very fitting for your style. Now I've read some of your work,
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  but it's also kind of of a departure from some of your
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  previous work. So you know what inspired you to
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  do Chicago 63, I guess? Sure.
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  Well, like I said earlier, my my first published book was
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  Prohibition, so that was set in 1930s New York.
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  So I always had that love of history, politics and crime
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  thrillers. So I even though I have written
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  in a bunch of different genres, I've done the crime fiction,
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  I've done Westerns and I've done thrillers.
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  I always loved good historical fiction because you can
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  introduce the audience to a different type of vision that
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  they might think of of, of a certain time.
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  Like when I wrote in the 1930s, everybody thought it was just a
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  bunch of guys walking around with hats and gats talking like
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  Jimmy Cagney and shooting people.
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  That wasn't really the case. It was a lot more.
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  People were a lot more sophisticated than we give them
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  credit for because it was right after World War One.
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  It was before World War 2 and the Roaring 20s were coming to
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  an end when I set my book. So that kind of conjunction of
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  errors really makes for a compelling storytelling and
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  that's what I loved to do when I was writing my 30s stuff.
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  Then when I had this idea for Chicago 63, it was because it
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  sprang out of a greater idea that I had for a trilogy based
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  on the events that happened in Dallas 63, which is the the
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  trilogy I I'm planning on writing, but sold from a Dallas
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  Cops perspective, a Dallas detectives perspective, not
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  getting into all of the international intrigue.
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  James Elroy, for example, did an incredible job with that, with
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  his American Underworld series. You know, I'm not going to be,
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  I'm not looking to do that. He, he did a masterful job and
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  he talked about Cuba. He talked about, you know, some
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  of his people travelled all over the region to set stuff up.
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  I didn't want to do that. I want to tell it just from one
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  perspective, because if you make a story like this too involved,
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  too many characters, people lose interest.
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  They get distracted. They just don't really want to
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  spend that much time reading what might seem like a textbook
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  on something they feel they already know something about.
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  So I wanted to take a different perspective of it, to tell of it
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  more as a crime rather than international intrigue or the
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  stereotypical bunch of old guys in the smoky room puffing on
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  cigars, chortling and deciding how they're going to divvy up
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  the world. That's great.
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  And a lot of other writers have done it.
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  It's not the kind of book I wanted to tell.
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  And you've read a little bit of my style.
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  You could say that I'm. I'm a lot more base than that.
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  I don't like to get too far away from from reality.
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  So while I was trying to finish up the first draft of Dallas 63,
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  I was talking to my friend James Apartment over at Best of Our
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  Books. Steve Stratton knows him quite
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  well. So does Eric.
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  And he said, well, do you have a novella in you about this era?
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  Maybe you could, instead of trying to sell all three books,
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  maybe you could put together something like a novella and see
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  where that leads. So I thought about it, and I had
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  done a ton of research into the Kennedy assassination and a lot
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  of the various plots that people have discussed over the years.
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  And usually I'm able to cut through a lot of that stuff.
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  You know, like UFOs, Bigfoot. I love researching stuff.
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  But when I research I usually come out on the side of
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  something in the real world explaining why a lot of this
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  stuff happened. Not all of it but you know a lot
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  of times with the UF OS it was just military technology that we
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  didn't know they had. With Bigfoot I think there's a
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  there's some gamesmanship there and there's also some mistaken
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  identity there's there's a lot I can always Ancient Aliens was
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  another theory that I've pretty much said people probably got
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  around a lot more than we thought.
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  I I, you know that these these weren't people.
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  I don't think you necessarily need to solve every ancient
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  mystery with with people coming down from outer space with
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  tractor beams moving blocks. I just don't.
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  I don't buy that. Well, I and I and listen like I
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  think, you know, from my perspective, you know, like I
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  host a political podcast or it's partially, you know, political
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  Some of the time I get people, I get people who send me, you
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  know, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the whole Q Anon
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  conspiracy or what it is, but it's, you know, it's the idea
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  that like we have big shadow government and you know, I don't
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  necessarily buy into all the Q Anon stuff.
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  However, I will say this that like whenever someone sends me Q
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  Anon stuff, I'm like, I read it and I'm like, how can I make
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  this into political thriller, right, Basically.
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  And because even if I don't think it's true, I'm kind of
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  like, well, if this were true, how would it, how could I turn
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  this into a gripping thriller? So.
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  Sure. And that's and you see that's
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  the kind of thing I'm talking about when I was doing the
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  research for for Dallas 63. You get ideas by reading this
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  stuff, even if you don't necessarily buy all of it.
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  You know, like for me, I was in government for 25 years, Trust
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  me, there is no such thing as the hyper prepared government
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  agency out there. It just doesn't exist.
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  And anybody who tell who's ever served in the military, I
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  haven't. I work for state government, but
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  I can tell you it's the same at the federal and the local and
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  the state level too. There's not a room full of
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  people just thinking stuff up in case something happens.
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  It's still a very reactionary form of public management.
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  Of course there are people who have military contingencies for
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  for a variety of things. But in terms of every single
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  thing being coordinated, it's that's just not possible.
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  And that's what I find. People fall down that rabbit
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  hole when they look into the JFK stuff.
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  They'll latch on to 1 theory and that's what they stick with and
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  and it God forbid you tried to cross them or you disagree with
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  them just a little bit. They come right at you.
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  And I'm sure you've probably had that experience with some of the
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  Q Anon people that you've talked to.
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  They get their theories and God forbid you don't agree with it
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  one right down the line. Or even not if, not even if you
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  necessarily I agree with it. But even if you question the how
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  of something or the why, they get really agitated even even by
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  that and you know it's it's interesting.
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  I mean with with now I will say this with with the with the
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  Kennedy assassination. It is a little weird to me at
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  least that all of the documents. After 60 years have still not
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  been declassified. Like the JFK is kind of the one
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  thing where I am, where I do sit back and I do look and I think,
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  well, maybe there were some rogue CIA guys like an American
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  Tab tabloid or, you know, something like that.
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  Maybe, you know, there were some people that were out to get, you
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  know, Kennedy within the government.
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  Sure. And asking those questions are
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  is what leads to really compelling thrillers or crime
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  fiction in general. And that's what I did.
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  I I went into it thinking, you know, there's a lot of stuff
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  here that just doesn't make sense.
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  Like there's some theories that all of the people who were part
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  of Watergate, the break in the plumbers, they were all in
• 21:02
  Dealey Plaza. That yeah, is not true.
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  That did not. I mean, it would be cool if it
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  was because it would. It would tie everything up.
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  But that wasn't the case. But there were a lot of loose
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  ends as I was digging down further when you look at the
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  tertiary characters because you can argue about the path of the
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  bullets. How many shooters were in Dealey
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  Plaza all day long and and still not arrive at a cohesive
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  conclusion? But when you look at the people
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  who were around Oswald and they're around these, the the
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  Kennedy administration, you do get to see glimmers of light
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  where you say, oh, this doesn't add up.
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  There were a lot of intelligence people who were involved in
• 21:45
  Oswald's life and more than people used to think, especially
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  back when the Warren Commission came out.
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  So that is fodder for a book like mine to come out.
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  So Abe, Abe Golden, your main character in Chicago 63, is
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  based off a real life Secret Service agent that I actually I
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  I knew that perspective on things actually, because like
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  you, I I love history. And especially of that
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  particular era in the in the 50s and 60s, how much of Abe's
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  character is fiction? And then how much did you base
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  off of Jane? I can't remember the guy's last
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  name, but the actual Agent Gold Golden.
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  Oh, agent. Yeah, the real agent is Abraham
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  Bolden. I changed his name to Golden
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  because this is a fictionalized account of what happened back
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  then, but based in fact now what I when I was doing Dallas 63, I
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  had a really great character that I was going to base on,
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  Abraham Bolden, but he was only going to be in the book for the
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  first third of it. And then he would disappear
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  because the Chicago plot happens and then there's really not much
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  for him to do. So as I was writing the draft, I
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  said, you know what? I've really gotten to like this
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  character. I'm not I am not really ready to
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  to to do that to him. Which is funny because it's it's
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  all in my mind. But I'm saying this guy is too
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  good for me just to write off and ignore.
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  But I can't in good conscience keep him around just to just
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  because I like him because it won't serve the story any.
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  So when James recommended that I try a novella, that's where I
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  said, whoa, this would be an awesome vehicle for me to put
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  Abraham Gold in it now. So I I pulled all of those parts
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  out and I created what became Chicago 63.
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  Abraham Bolden was in the Chicago office back in November
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  of 1963, and months before then he was also the first African
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  American Secret Service agent whoever protected a president,
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  and he did that on Kennedy's request.
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  Kennedy requested him and and personally called him the the
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  Jackie Robinson of the Secret Service, which is an honor that
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  the former agent still carries with them to this day.
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  But in the book, I take a lot of what happened with a couple of
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  different Secret Service investigations, and there were
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  only about two or three other agents working on this in the
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  president's approach to Chicago. And I put them all under the
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  fictionalized Abraham Golden. Because again, as I said
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  earlier, if you have too many people working in One Direction
• 24:48
  in these books, they tend to fall apart because people don't
• 24:51
  know who to follow. They say, I've really invested
• 24:54
  in this character. Hey, where'd he go?
• 24:56
  He's not doing something cool or she's not doing something cool.
• 24:59
  So I fictionalized his role in it.
• 25:02
  But all of the investigations that happened, all of that
• 25:07
  happened, including the the finale with the two Chicago
• 25:13
  police officers. I'm not going to give it away
• 25:14
  because I don't want to spoil it, but all of the
• 25:18
  investigations actually happened.
• 25:20
  There was a plot to assassinate the president in November, on
• 25:25
  November 2nd, 1963 in Chicago. The plot of the layout of the
• 25:32
  motorcade, all of that is true. All of that was was actually
• 25:35
  going to happen. And the assassin that they had
• 25:39
  picked for it, Thomas Valley, did work in a warehouse that was
• 25:44
  right next to where the president's car was going to
• 25:46
  slow down. All of that is fact.
• 25:50
  Yeah, I actually think it's funny you mentioned Thomas
• 25:52
  Valley because I believe I, I just recently listened to James
• 26:02
  Elroy basically did like an audio drama adaption of American
• 26:07
  Tabloid. And I I heard about that.
• 26:10
  And I believe that Thomas Valley actually makes like a very brief
• 26:15
  appearance. I mean, that book is long, but
• 26:20
  like I I've, I've definitely it. It also came out the year I was
• 26:24
  born, so oh. God, Jesus, I read it when it
• 26:27
  first came out. God, I feel ancient.
• 26:29
  Yeah well well it's well Al. Al Roy is one of my was is one
• 26:36
  of my biggest influences as far as writing.
• 26:40
  I had AI had a high school English teacher who also taught
• 26:46
  film, and we watched LA. Confidential.
• 26:53
  Confidential that year. And he, you know, he knew I was
• 26:59
  into politics and history. So he actually gave me a copy of
• 27:05
  of American Tabloid. And you know, the first year,
• 27:09
  the first time I read it, it was mind blowing and that got me
• 27:13
  kind into the whole Kennedy assassination conspiracy.
• 27:18
  Like even though Ellroy has said himself that he doesn't really
• 27:22
  believe in it. That's the That's The funny
• 27:25
  thing. Right.
• 27:28
  I mean and like I said, when when you get into the tertiary
• 27:31
  characters, not that the the main movers and shakers or even
• 27:34
  the clay shaws of or Clay Beltran, whatever his name was
• 27:38
  of the whole conspiracy, that's when you start losing the threat
• 27:40
  of it. But when you look at the the
• 27:42
  secondary characters, like the real life Abraham Bolden and
• 27:47
  you, and they tell you what they uncovered at the time, that's
• 27:51
  pretty interesting stuff. And it's kind of hard to just
• 27:54
  shrug all of that off as happenstance and coincidence.
• 27:57
  Did you so were you able to like actually talk to any of these
• 28:02
  guys or were you just looking at like historical transcripts and
• 28:07
  records and? I was looking through an awful
• 28:10
  lot of the records and a lot an awful lot of the transcripts.
• 28:13
  Found it from different sources, learned about that.
• 28:17
  There were in fact 4 Cubans who were in Chicago in a hotel room
• 28:22
  at that time. The Secret Service only caught
• 28:25
  two of them. The other two escaped with the
• 28:27
  rifles. Nobody knows what happened to
• 28:29
  them. Nobody really tried to find out
• 28:31
  either because it was over and it's off their their plate
• 28:35
  because it's on to the next thing.
• 28:36
  There aren't because it goes back to also what we were
• 28:39
  talking about earlier is the myth of the hyper prepared
• 28:41
  government. The government has a lot more
• 28:43
  resources than your county or city in most cases, but it's not
• 28:47
  an infinite resource. They do have other things that
• 28:51
  they're doing all at once and there were only so many Secret
• 28:54
  Service agents out there, especially outside of DC Same
• 28:59
  thing with the FBI, same thing even with the US Army.
• 29:02
  There's only so many soldiers they have in one area that can
• 29:05
  do something. So when Kennedy was coming to
• 29:08
  town in November of 1962, it wasn't just this army of Secret
• 29:13
  Service agents that descended on Chicago a month before.
• 29:18
  It was the eight person department of the Chicago off
• 29:22
  field office of the Secret Service that had to do a lot of
• 29:25
  the legwork and they had to rely on Chicago PD detectives in
• 29:30
  their intelligence division to do the same.
• 29:33
  So it you know, the the problem people have of grasping that is
• 29:36
  is that there weren't a ton of people they just throw at this
• 29:39
  stuff because the president goes a lot of places each week.
• 29:42
  So 11 plot is over, they move on to the next one.
• 29:46
  Yeah. Especially back then.
• 29:49
  Yeah I mean when I was talking to Steve Stanton you know as you
• 29:54
  know he was in the Secret Service and I and I I asked him
• 30:00
  you know like what His routine was and you know some of the the
• 30:04
  protocols and you know he told me and it was you know pretty
• 30:08
  mind blowing what you know he and his team that had to do you
• 30:12
  know just for logistics and to to pre sweep for you know of
• 30:19
  that. And you know, that was like that
• 30:23
  was in the, that was in the late 70s and 80s when he was doing
• 30:26
  that. So, you know, quite a few years
• 30:29
  removed from Kennedy's day. But Even so, I mean, yeah, the
• 30:34
  logistics of the Secret Service. I mean, it's a it's bureaucracy
• 30:39
  like anything else. Exactly right, with finite
• 30:44
  resources and everything. Also changed after the Kennedy
• 30:48
  assassination, too. If we look at what happened in
• 30:51
  1963 through a 2024 lens, it's going to look really obscure and
• 30:57
  and really off. Now, there were mistakes made
• 31:00
  that day, but I mean, it's the the, the methods of following up
• 31:05
  on things like the the players in the Chicago plot, you can
• 31:09
  understand why they may not have focused on that because they
• 31:12
  went on to the next city where the president was supposed to
• 31:15
  be. Yeah.
• 31:18
  Well and and that's the that's the other thing too is like with
• 31:21
  the Chicago plot what was interesting was you would have
• 31:26
  thought that after that I guess failed or went away that the
• 31:31
  that the president would have just stayed in the White House
• 31:35
  you know for a longer period of time than he than he did because
• 31:39
  I mean Dallas didn't. I I looked up the timeline and
• 31:45
  like Dallas happened pretty close after two after when
• 31:49
  Chicago, what happened? And I I don't want to give, I
• 31:53
  don't want to give specific spoilers away, but you do kind
• 31:58
  of foreshadow, at least the way I read it, you do foreshadow
• 32:04
  Dallas a little bit. I was kind of, I guess I was
• 32:09
  kind of expecting you to maybe do like an alternate history
• 32:12
  thing maybe where you know Dallas gets averted.
• 32:18
  But you didn't do that. At all?
• 32:21
  Yeah. No, I didn't.
• 32:23
  No, because as I said earlier that this novella was born out
• 32:26
  of the Dallas 63 books that I plan on writing.
• 32:30
  So it was taken from that universe where what happened in
• 32:34
  Dallas happened the way it history remembers it.
• 32:38
  But that's the ironic part of all of this.
• 32:41
  If you just look at the assassination itself and you
• 32:44
  just look at at the conspiracy in a box, it becomes a little
• 32:49
  bit pixelated because you have to look at the whole world at
• 32:53
  the time of of when the assassination happened.
• 32:58
  Kennedy was looking at re election in 1964.
• 33:01
  He wasn't as strong as his people wanted him to be in terms
• 33:05
  of the polls. Lyndon Johnson was in trouble.
• 33:07
  He was in the middle of the bill.
• 33:09
  The Bobby Baker scandal, it had just broken on Life magazine a
• 33:13
  couple of weeks before of Kennedy was assassinated in
• 33:19
  Dallas in 1963. They didn't know if he was even
• 33:22
  going to be on the ticket with Kennedy, so there was an awful
• 33:25
  lot going on. So he went S to Texas because he
• 33:28
  needed to shore up his support. Kennedy was also wounded by
• 33:33
  things like the Bay of Pigs invasion, which had been an
• 33:36
  Eisenhower plot and he didn't really support when he came into
• 33:41
  office as as the planners thought he would in the Cuban
• 33:44
  Missile crisis was another thing that weakened his standing.
• 33:47
  And a lot of people were anxious about that.
• 33:50
  And I think some of them who had the means to do something about
• 33:54
  their anxiety unfortunately hatched the plot that we now
• 33:58
  know of of as being successful in Dallas.
• 34:01
  But the first one was was definitely Chicago.
• 34:05
  And then there was another plot to get him in Miami which they
• 34:09
  they completely, I think they completely called off his trip
• 34:12
  to Miami in the middle of November of 63 because it was a
• 34:17
  similar plot to what was uncovered in Chicago.
• 34:22
  And the only reason why we know about the Chicago plot is
• 34:25
  because the real life Abraham Bolden went to the Warren
• 34:30
  Commission after all of this happened said I was monitoring
• 34:34
  the radio traffic it when the president was planning on coming
• 34:38
  to Chicago for the Army Air Force game that Saturday.
• 34:41
  And here's what I've uncovered. The Warren Commission wouldn't
• 34:46
  let him submit that evidence because it would have hinted at
• 34:50
  it would have actually proven there had been a conspiracy,
• 34:53
  something that was almost a mirror image of what happened in
• 34:56
  Dallas. So they threw out his testimony,
• 35:01
  wouldn't let him testify. Then they set him up for a
• 35:04
  bribery charge, and he spent six years in federal prison for his
• 35:08
  trouble. And it was only in 2022 that
• 35:11
  President Biden pardoned him of that charge and absolve this
• 35:16
  record. Yeah.
• 35:17
  I don't. I don't necessarily like Biden.
• 35:20
  But let let the record show that this is the one time on the show
• 35:24
  where I will commend Biden for do you know, doing something you
• 35:31
  know, good because I mean I do think that you know, based on
• 35:36
  everything I've read on Golden he on Golden, he was a, you
• 35:42
  know, a notable figure and it it seemed like he did care about
• 35:45
  the the Kennedys. You know, even even Bobby to a
• 35:49
  certain extent. I don't know how close he got
• 35:53
  with, you know, Bobby. But I mean, based on everything
• 35:58
  I've read, the Kennedys seem to really appreciate him and what
• 36:03
  he what he did for Jack so. Sure, yeah.
• 36:07
  And unfortunately they weren't able to support him when he
• 36:10
  needed them after his bribery conviction.
• 36:14
  But I'm glad that in hindsight, history got it right and the
• 36:18
  government finally did right by this brave man.
• 36:22
  What about one thing I'm curious about with Chicago?
• 36:27
  What about the Chicago mob and the the mafia element?
• 36:32
  Do you think there was anything there with like organized crime
• 36:37
  in you know that the the Kennedy assassination have have you
• 36:42
  thought to explore that Ave. at all?
• 36:45
  I did, yes. And I don't know if it was
• 36:49
  anything that was direct or overt as it was in other parts
• 36:54
  of the assassination plot. For example, I in this book I
• 36:59
  mentioned that there were Cuban guerrilla training camps
• 37:02
  throughout the United States both on the East Coast down in
• 37:06
  Florida, in Louisiana and then in other countries like Mexico
• 37:10
  and Guatemala. That actually was true and
• 37:13
  Valley did work at one of them that was on that was based in
• 37:16
  Long Island. So a lot of the those camps were
• 37:21
  funded in this country by mafia affiliated people and I think in
• 37:28
  the Chicago plot they probably directed the two police officers
• 37:35
  who were who I mentioned in the book.
• 37:37
  Probably they made sure they pulled strings to make sure
• 37:40
  these two were were were part of it because they they in the in
• 37:44
  real life they did pull over Valley for a truck stop a
• 37:47
  traffic violation and then found all of the weapon, the
• 37:50
  ammunition in his car and a lot of the stuff that happens in the
• 37:54
  novella. But I do think that they might
• 37:56
  have been involved in that way. But I didn't see anything even
• 38:00
  from back then, and even from articles that I had seen written
• 38:05
  in 1974 and during my research didn't see any mention of of the
• 38:10
  boys being involved directly in the plot.
• 38:13
  Yeah, that that's interesting because what I've often read,
• 38:17
  there's a theory out there that that that the Mafia was involved
• 38:22
  in the assassination because they were upset that the Bay of
• 38:26
  Pigs was a flop because they were.
• 38:29
  Because they were expecting Castro to be overthrown so that
• 38:34
  they could get all their casinos and, you know, operations in
• 38:39
  Havana. And then when that fell, you
• 38:43
  know, when that didn't happen, they got mad at Jack.
• 38:46
  And the theory is that they, you know, whacked him for that and
• 38:52
  then and then set up Oswald as a pastor.
• 38:56
  I don't know if. I don't know if the mob, it
• 38:59
  isn't even that organized, but that that's another theory I've
• 39:03
  I've heard out there. So yeah, I mean, they definitely
• 39:07
  had a role in funding the camps and supplying arms for the
• 39:11
  camps. But I have a feeling, and I've
• 39:14
  talked to a lot of people who are in the military and I
• 39:16
  haven't been, but they do. And you don't get that kind of
• 39:20
  criminal mentality doesn't really transfer well when you're
• 39:23
  trying to prepare people to go into battle, which is exactly
• 39:27
  what the Bay of Pigs is. And also the second invasion
• 39:32
  that JFK and Bobby were planning Sub Rosa with from the White
• 39:37
  House after they cleaned out the CIA.
• 39:41
  That just doesn't translate well to Soldier.
• 39:43
  Now, former soldiers usually do pretty well when they go into
• 39:46
  the mob, but in terms of doing it the other way and having them
• 39:49
  run the camps, I've heard that too.
• 39:51
  And I'm like, no, that wasn't it.
• 39:53
  I I think they, they funded it. And you also have Carlos
• 39:57
  Marcelo, who was personally had a personal vendetta against RFK
• 40:03
  for having FBI agents grab him one night in his slippers and
• 40:07
  pajamas and dump him off in the jungles of Guatemala.
• 40:10
  And since he had all of those training camps in in Louisiana
• 40:14
  and was helping to fund arms for them to train with throughout
• 40:19
  the country. I think he probably had a really
• 40:22
  good motive, if you will, to get a little bit of revenge and I
• 40:27
  think that's exactly how it would happen.
• 40:30
  So then I I guess here's the $1,000,000 question.
• 40:34
  And. Thank God I'm not posting this
• 40:37
  to YouTube because otherwise it would probably get bull it get
• 40:40
  pulled. But but what do you think
• 40:44
  Terence McCauley was the real store with the JFK
• 40:49
  assassination? Was Oswald the lone actor or did
• 40:53
  he have help? Or like who I guess in your
• 40:59
  minds killed Kennedy? Or are we going to have to read
• 41:03
  the Dallas trilogy to find out your theory on that?
• 41:08
  Well, you don't have to necessarily read the the
• 41:11
  trilogy, although I will touch heavily upon that.
• 41:14
  I if you and I said this a couple of times already, If you
• 41:18
  look at the tertiary characters, the secondary people that you
• 41:21
  don't see in every single documentary that are not going
• 41:25
  to be bold face names when you're looking up an article,
• 41:30
  there's a lot of people who were in Oswald's orbit that just
• 41:33
  quite simply didn't need to be there and they are steeped in
• 41:38
  the intelligence community. Take the Pains, for example,
• 41:41
  Michael and Ruth Payne, who Oswald's wife was staying with.
• 41:45
  They were affiliated with the White Russian community in
• 41:48
  Dallas. Who knew Russians went to
• 41:50
  Dallas. But apparently there were quite
• 41:52
  a few of them who were exiles from from Communist Russia.
• 41:56
  They both were heavily involved in intelligence and intelligence
• 42:00
  gathering throughout their careers and throughout their
• 42:03
  lives, even up until the the 80s.
• 42:06
  You have people like that who, when you look at them closely,
• 42:11
  you're saying, why would a nobody or a guy like Oswald,
• 42:14
  who's supposed to be nobody, be hanging around with all these
• 42:18
  connected people like George the Moore and SHIELD and all of the
• 42:21
  people who were in the background of of Oswald's life
• 42:25
  that that shouldn't have even needed to pass him in the
• 42:27
  street, much less take him into their home and and and work with
• 42:32
  him and help his family. There's just too many of them,
• 42:36
  especially in a sprawling city like Dallas, for that to be a
• 42:39
  coincidence. It's not like they rump.
• 42:40
  They bumped into him in a bar. These people actually shared
• 42:44
  part of their lives with him. And there's a lot of other, you
• 42:47
  know, and then there's also too, when you look at the
• 42:49
  assassination day itself, there's also the murder of JD
• 42:52
  Tippett, which is a fascinating topic in and of itself.
• 42:56
  There were some researchers who spend their whole careers just
• 43:00
  delving into that. So there's always something.
• 43:04
  It's those secondary characters that make it more plausible for
• 43:10
  me to just think that Oswald was a useful idiot.
• 43:14
  I don't think he was innocent. He definitely was part of it.
• 43:17
  There's a lot of evidence that he was part of the camps in
• 43:20
  Louisiana, training people for a second invasion of Cuba.
• 43:24
  They thought maybe he might have been involved in the.
• 43:27
  No, I don't think he was involved in the first wave, but
• 43:30
  he's definitely involved in the 2nd wave that they were
• 43:33
  planning. And I I tend to think that they
• 43:38
  set him up to take the fall. I don't know if he pulled the
• 43:41
  trigger that day because I don't know why somebody who's living
• 43:45
  in Dallas, TX would right away to Chicago for a man liquor
• 43:50
  Carcano and then leave a paper trail when he could have gone
• 43:54
  across the street and bought a rifle.
• 43:56
  I just I don't understand that. Yeah, that's that.
• 44:01
  That does seem a little fishy. It does, yeah.
• 44:06
  To. Me, my theory.
• 44:09
  I'm not necessarily saying that like Johnson was the one who
• 44:14
  like hatched a plot to assessment Kennedy, but I I have
• 44:18
  always found interesting. I've actually asked my
• 44:21
  grandmother about this because she was, you know, she was alive
• 44:25
  when the assassination happened. But, but as you mentioned,
• 44:29
  Johnson was kind of on the outs with you know.
• 44:37
  The. With JFK, and although he was
• 44:43
  the vice president, it didn't really seem like he and Jack got
• 44:47
  along all that well. So, you know, I'm not saying
• 44:55
  that he was behind the assassination, but it kind of
• 44:58
  was convenient for his political career that he was able to
• 45:03
  ascend to the presidency. Yeah, I've heard a lot of
• 45:08
  theories about that too. And I think that, you know, if
• 45:11
  you, if you look at Johnson's career, he was incredibly
• 45:14
  cunning and you didn't see an awful lot of courage.
• 45:17
  You saw that he always had an angle.
• 45:20
  He always had a wedge that was off the off screen, if you will,
• 45:24
  that he was able to use to get his will imposed.
• 45:27
  But I I don't know if anybody who would plan something like
• 45:31
  this would trust him with that kind of information, because I
• 45:35
  have no doubt that he would have ratted them out to make himself
• 45:38
  look like a hero and save his own backside at the first
• 45:41
  opportunity. So is he capable of it?
• 45:45
  Where people are, I don't know. We're we're people around him
• 45:48
  who who benefited by him being in power, capable of it,
• 45:52
  absolutely. And I don't think they can
• 45:55
  escape consideration for collaboration.
• 45:59
  But Johnson himself, I I there are a lot of people I respect to
• 46:04
  in this theory field who who say he was involved.
• 46:09
  I wouldn't put it past him. But I I don't think people who
• 46:12
  could pull this off would trust him with that information.
• 46:15
  He might have involved tangentially, but he wasn't the
• 46:19
  map, the mastermind. Right.
• 46:22
  I don't see that and and I know a lot of people have said well
• 46:25
  he put Connelly in the car to take to take suspicion off
• 46:29
  himself later. I I he seemed to be very close
• 46:32
  with Connelly. They had a strange relationship
• 46:34
  later but I don't see him doing that and I I I honestly don't
• 46:38
  see him putting his friend's wife in jeopardy by doing that.
• 46:42
  I think if if he caught any hints of this and I there's some
• 46:48
  people who say he did, I just don't see him being part of it.
• 46:51
  Game day I I just don't. So just don't see it.
• 46:57
  But I mean if you look at different things, like Connolly
• 46:58
  always thought there were more, that there was more than one
• 47:00
  shooter. He went to his grave thinking
• 47:03
  that. And if you look at a lot of the
• 47:05
  computer simulations that they show you, you have to be careful
• 47:09
  with that too, because a lot of the theories will look, will
• 47:13
  line up the trajectory of the bullets and they'll say, well
• 47:15
  look, the bullet would have to be the magic bullet.
• 47:17
  You know, flipping around. What a lot of those people don't
• 47:20
  count for is that Connolly was on a jump seat which was not
• 47:25
  flush in front of Kennedy. It was inset a bit and lower.
• 47:29
  So it did the shot as they have it in a lot of the the straight
• 47:34
  line that you see going through Kennedy and then straight down
• 47:38
  into Connolly. Those Ballistics do match up.
• 47:41
  There's only one problem. That's not where the bullet
• 47:43
  entered Kennedy's back. It didn't enter a straight line
• 47:46
  and go there It was. And and this is a matter of
• 47:49
  record, it was further over to the right and lower.
• 47:52
  So it didn't go right. There was no bullet that went
• 47:55
  through his back, went out through him and then hit
• 47:58
  Connolly in front of him. That just didn't happen.
• 48:01
  And President Gerald Ford, who was on the the committee at the
• 48:05
  time, said yeah, but we just moved it because it just seemed
• 48:08
  cleaner that way. Those kinds of things are are
• 48:12
  weird. Why now?
• 48:16
  My other question is, as far as I can tell, if Kennedy wasn't
• 48:23
  wearing a vest either that day, which?
• 48:27
  He wasn't, but he was wearing a back brace, and that's why he
• 48:30
  didn't slump all the way forward.
• 48:34
  He was wearing a back brace because he had a bad back and
• 48:36
  that that's well documented. But no, he was not wearing a
• 48:39
  Kevlar vest or a bulletproof vest.
• 48:42
  Well maybe Which kind of seems which after reading Chicago 63.
• 48:48
  I do have to wonder, and I'm not really expecting you to answer
• 48:54
  this, but I this book has kind of given me pause to think, OK,
• 48:59
  well if if if there was an assassination attempt in Chicago
• 49:04
  for a plot, why wasn't Kennedy wearing a vest in Dallas and.
• 49:12
  Right. Well based on the wounds that he
• 49:15
  got the you know the the if you look at the kind of knuckle
• 49:19
  wounds, the throat and the headshot they would that a vest
• 49:22
  wouldn't have helped them. But if you and and but I I think
• 49:28
  that you have to look at some other things.
• 49:30
  He was also a glamour puss. He was a good looking guy and
• 49:34
  knew it. He was very photogenic.
• 49:36
  It was incredibly warm for November in Dallas.
• 49:39
  That day he had his brace on already.
• 49:43
  Even if they had thought to put a bulletproof vest on him, he
• 49:46
  probably would have been pumping sweat and he would have looked a
• 49:48
  lot heavier than he was. So I could totally see him
• 49:53
  refusing to put one on, and given the environment at the
• 49:56
  time, I I could see the Secret Service allowing that to happen.
• 50:00
  I don't think they would. They've done it since, though.
• 50:03
  Right. No, because I mean we've also
• 50:05
  had, you know, there was Reagan's assassination in the
• 50:09
  early 80s, which is also interesting.
• 50:16
  Right as well. Yeah.
• 50:17
  But you, you saw a lot of people on the ground there too.
• 50:20
  I mean that was who nailed Hinckley and also you through
• 50:23
  that incredible shot of the Secret Service pulling the Uzi
• 50:27
  out of the the suitcase and and running to protect Reagan.
• 50:32
  You know that there could there they completely changed
• 50:35
  everything after 63. A lot of their tactics on the
• 50:38
  ground. So unfortunately, they learned a
• 50:41
  bitter lesson that day in Dallas.
• 50:44
  What about? What about Bobby's
• 50:47
  assassination? Are you going to do anything
• 50:50
  regarding his death or assassination?
• 50:56
  Are you or are you primarily focused on Jax?
• 51:00
  Yeah, the Dallas 63 trilogy I'd like to write is definitely
• 51:04
  going to be centered just on the events that happened in the
• 51:06
  months leading up to what happened in Dallas.
• 51:10
  Then the second book in my mind would be about Oswald being in
• 51:14
  custody and what happens to him there.
• 51:18
  And then the third book will be about the pursuit of some of the
• 51:21
  people who were involved in the assassination, who fled all the
• 51:25
  way up to the Canadian border. And that's actually a a fact.
• 51:29
  There were some really interesting people that got away
• 51:33
  in the hours after it happened that really deserve quite a bit
• 51:38
  of scrutiny, and that's what I plan on doing in my book.
• 51:41
  So do you have outlines for like all three books, or are you
• 51:46
  working on each book individually, or what it?
• 51:50
  What is your process generally for writing these types of
• 51:55
  novels? I approach these as I approach
• 51:59
  all of my work. I don't do a lot of outlining.
• 52:02
  I do, however, when I'm getting familiar with an era in American
• 52:07
  history, take a lot of notes, so I won't be thinking of what's my
• 52:11
  protagonist going to be doing in this situation.
• 52:14
  I'm looking for inspiration from the source material, whatever
• 52:16
  that is. Sometimes it's newspapers,
• 52:19
  sometimes it's documentaries, whatever it is, that's going to
• 52:22
  help get the creative juices flowing.
• 52:26
  So I've taken an awful lot of notes based on the full range of
• 52:32
  the events that happened over three days in Dallas, and that's
• 52:36
  what I'm working from right now. So the first book is going to be
• 52:41
  about the seeds of the conspiracy all the way through
• 52:46
  to it actually happening that day.
• 52:49
  And then the other two books are going to be about the aftermath.
• 52:53
  So I don't think I'm really going to be able to stick with
• 52:57
  the character long enough to have him delve into the RFK
• 53:00
  assassination that happened in 68.
• 53:03
  But a good friend of mine, Guy Coat, wrote a fantastic book,
• 53:08
  The Girl in the Polka dot Dress, and I definitely think you
• 53:11
  should have him on because he did an awful lot of
• 53:13
  investigation into the RFK assassination and he would be a
• 53:18
  great guest for you. Yeah, I I actually, I haven't
• 53:21
  listened to your podcast with him yet, but I did see it pop up
• 53:25
  on my Spotify. So I'm definitely going to
• 53:29
  listen to that probably after we finished recording this.
• 53:32
  But yeah, I mean the I think, you know, even now people are,
• 53:40
  you know like well geez, there's been a ton of books on the
• 53:44
  Kennedy assassination. I I think what you're doing of
• 53:49
  taking more to a ground approach is more unique and having you
• 54:00
  know your protagonist kind of be the street level protagonist
• 54:06
  instead of up in the wings trying to navigate like the deep
• 54:10
  state or the shadow government or right you know what not.
• 54:17
  Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth.
• 54:19
  I was going to say I wanted to tell this story from the street
• 54:21
  level, not from the sweet level. And that's completely, you hit
• 54:26
  it right on the head because I think it's more interesting that
• 54:29
  way. And I think that it becomes a
• 54:30
  lot more understandable and relatable once you you have it
• 54:34
  presented a story like this, presented in a way that it
• 54:39
  doesn't seem too far into. You like the halls of power in
• 54:42
  DCI also think that you can get a writer can get away with an
• 54:46
  awful lot if you keep it up in the ethereal.
• 54:48
  If it's amongst the angels, the mere immortals don't question
• 54:51
  it. And I think that at at its heart
• 54:54
  this was a street killing on the streets of Dallas in front of a
• 54:58
  whole group of people and no one realized that it was going to be
• 55:01
  filmed but it wound up being that way and that that was a
• 55:04
  huge problem for them after it happened So and they they sat on
• 55:09
  that the Zapruder film for example for a long, long time
• 55:11
  and God knows what other kinds of film they're they're sitting
• 55:14
  on too. So it's I think once you get
• 55:17
  lost in the weeds and then you put it perfectly, once you you
• 55:20
  make it too much of A battle amongst gods if you will, people
• 55:28
  lose interest. So I I my opinion is, is that if
• 55:30
  you make it more of a crime based story, people are going to
• 55:33
  be invested in it. Yeah, I I certainly think
• 55:37
  that's, you know, that's certainly the case.
• 55:40
  Now from the flip side, it's interesting that you mentioned,
• 55:42
  you know, authors, you know, riding from the wings and doing
• 55:48
  conspiracy things because admittedly that's what I've done
• 55:51
  with my books, somewhat like I said, I don't believe in, you
• 55:57
  know, conspiracy theories myself.
• 55:59
  But it is interesting to kind of be like, OK, well, if this far
• 56:02
  fetched thing did in fact happen, then how would it, you
• 56:09
  know, how would that go? So that's been interesting to
• 56:12
  play with. Sure.
• 56:15
  As far as novellas go, what was that experience like for you,
• 56:21
  you know, coming coming down from like writing a big novel
• 56:25
  and now writing a novella? Did you enjoy it or did you?
• 56:31
  You know, what did you enjoy? What did you dislike about it
• 56:34
  and what did you do again? Well, I've done it before.
• 56:38
  I've I've written two other, no, actually four other novellas.
• 56:43
  Two of them were science fiction based and and that was a lot of
• 56:48
  fun. They didn't get a lot of
• 56:51
  attention, but that's fine. It was for a small publisher.
• 56:54
  And then I did one that was for the old fight card series that
• 56:57
  was put on by Paul Bishop and Mel Odom several years ago and I
• 57:02
  tied that into my 1930s stuff though the fight card series was
• 57:06
  were boxing centric stories about the people in and around
• 57:10
  the sweet science of boxing. So I I love doing that.
• 57:14
  I wrote another novella called the Devil Dogs of Belle Isle
• 57:18
  Wood. They that was about the World
• 57:21
  War One battle where the modern reputation of the Marines is the
• 57:27
  baddest ass fighting force in the world.
• 57:29
  Kate was born during that battle and all proceeds of that go
• 57:34
  directly to the Semper Fi fund. So I wrote that pretty much from
• 57:39
  my 1930 characters perspective. Charlie Doherty.
• 57:43
  In this, the course of the books, he goes on to become a
• 57:45
  New York City police detective corrupted by Tammany Hall.
• 57:48
  So. But in this book he's a younger
• 57:50
  man fighting in in Belle Isle Wood with his fellow Marines.
• 57:55
  And so I love the challenge of taking a novel idea for that
• 58:01
  that should be 90,000 words or more and then shrinking it down
• 58:05
  into something that's more of a easier bit of fiction to digest.
• 58:10
  I also have written a lot of short stories.
• 58:12
  I've been lucky to be nominated for some awards for that.
• 58:16
  I've gotten some acclaim doing that.
• 58:19
  Love that form as well. Every form, whether it's a book,
• 58:22
  short story, or novella, presents its own different
• 58:25
  challenges, and I embrace them because it helps keep me fresh.
• 58:29
  Because if you just sit down and you keep writing the same stuff
• 58:32
  over and over again, the same way, in the same time period, no
• 58:36
  matter how much you love it, you're eventually going to get
• 58:39
  bored. And if I'm bored, the readers
• 58:41
  going to get bored and I don't want that, there's always going
• 58:45
  to be competitions to pull you away from what I've written and
• 58:50
  what you've bought. You know you've got check my
• 58:54
  Facebook or go on Snapchat or tweet or watch a football game
• 58:58
  something. And I as long as I can keep you
• 59:00
  engaged, I've got you and and and I want to tell you that
• 59:04
  story. I can't do that if I have.
• 59:07
  Ultimately, familiarity breeds contempt and if I have contempt
• 59:10
  for the story, so will the reader.
• 59:12
  So changing it up a little bit every once in a while keeps me
• 59:16
  fresh. That's, I mean, I think that's
• 59:19
  pretty sage advice there, you know, for aspiring riders.
• 59:25
  And I mean I I think it's also good that you know, you, you
• 59:30
  seem to enjoy riding in all these different, you know,
• 59:33
  genres too. You're not.
• 59:36
  You're not a one trick pony, you know, which I find very
• 59:41
  refreshing. And there's something each genre
• 59:45
  can can teach a writer, too, you know, If you think that you've
• 59:49
  got a great idea but there's nobody looking, let's let's say
• 59:52
  you keep an eye out for submissions requirements and
• 59:55
  somebody says, you know what, We're only looking for short
• 59:57
  stories right now. And you say, well, I've got an
• 59:59
  idea for a a full novel. Think about that.
• 1:00:03
  See, if you can't make a short story out of it, take it.
• 1:00:05
  Is there a piece of it that you could pluck out like I did?
• 1:00:08
  Chicago 63 came out of Dallas 63.
• 1:00:11
  Well, see if you can't make an independent project out of it.
• 1:00:14
  And if you can, maybe you've got something you can submit.
• 1:00:17
  You never know. Yeah, I mean, I I have, I have
• 1:00:21
  short stories that I wrote back when I was a teenager that I'll
• 1:00:26
  never publish in their in their original form.
• 1:00:30
  But I I have taken them and I've put them into some of the works
• 1:00:36
  that I'm, you know, that I've written and I'm currently
• 1:00:40
  writing right now too. So you know, that's that's the
• 1:00:44
  other thing is you is, you know, using, you know, different
• 1:00:51
  mediums as inspiration too. Right.
• 1:00:55
  And and nothing you write should ever be considered a waste of
• 1:00:59
  time or that you can throw it away.
• 1:01:01
  It doesn't have an expiration date and there is no law that
• 1:01:04
  says you can't use something that didn't sell.
• 1:01:07
  Once again, because I wrote my my very first book that I spent
• 1:01:12
  a lot of my early 20s writing was a book called Tenets of
• 1:01:16
  Power. You're not going to find it
• 1:01:17
  anywhere. It never got published.
• 1:01:19
  It was about the high drama of the mergers and acquisitions
• 1:01:23
  industry. You know, these captains of
• 1:01:25
  industry going in, buying, selling companies, fighting for
• 1:01:28
  it, stuff like that. The book didn't get I I
• 1:01:31
  submitted it to people, it didn't get published.
• 1:01:33
  But the book is lived on in about four or five different
• 1:01:37
  other books that have since come to market.
• 1:01:39
  So none of the stuff that I did, I changed the names of the
• 1:01:42
  characters, I changed the setting, lots of different
• 1:01:45
  tweaks. But the core of that story has
• 1:01:47
  lived on in four or five different books.
• 1:01:50
  So my my one bit of advice is to to any writer at any stage,
• 1:01:55
  don't be afraid of the format and don't be afraid to recycle
• 1:01:59
  some of your stuff and and give it new life.
• 1:02:02
  Because just because an agent or an editor didn't like it when
• 1:02:06
  you submitted it doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
• 1:02:08
  Just wasn't right for them at the time.
• 1:02:10
  What do you think of of self public publishing?
• 1:02:14
  I've had a lot of self published authors and you know, and
• 1:02:18
  traditionally published authors, but usually I tend to like to
• 1:02:23
  ask, you know, guess what they think of both models.
• 1:02:30
  You know, when I wrote my first short story back in 2014, just
• 1:02:37
  from my observation back then, people kind of scoffed at the
• 1:02:42
  idea of, oh you're a self published author.
• 1:02:45
  I'm not even going to bother looking at that.
• 1:02:48
  Now there seems to be a bit more of an acceptance, which is
• 1:02:53
  great. I I do think there is still a
• 1:02:57
  place for just traditional publishing as well.
• 1:03:01
  But you know, as someone who has been in traditional publishing,
• 1:03:05
  I'm kind of curious what you might think of self-publishing
• 1:03:09
  and where the publishing industry is heading.
• 1:03:14
  Well, you're starting to see it shrink as it's been.
• 1:03:17
  A lot of these houses have been acquired by larger entities and
• 1:03:21
  entities with interests in other industries.
• 1:03:23
  You're starting to see some of it shrink.
• 1:03:25
  And that means that even the big publishers are limited by what
• 1:03:30
  they can publish, by what they can afford to bring on, because
• 1:03:34
  every book is an investment. And when you look at the book
• 1:03:37
  publishing industry as a business, their decisions and
• 1:03:41
  their actions become a lot clearer.
• 1:03:43
  You work as a writer. It's our art.
• 1:03:45
  It's our baby. We all know that and it's it's
• 1:03:49
  deeply personal to us. But to someone else it is a
• 1:03:53
  product that has to be packaged and sold, hopefully for a
• 1:03:58
  profit, because if there isn't a profit, then there's no other
• 1:04:01
  books that they can publish. Yeah, so you know, that is.
• 1:04:05
  That explains a lot of the reasons why the big publishers
• 1:04:08
  do what they do and why they don't do a little bit more
• 1:04:12
  anthologies. For example, you don't see too
• 1:04:14
  many of the big publishers, publishing authority
• 1:04:17
  anthologies. That falls to a lot of the
• 1:04:19
  smaller independent publishers. That's because there's not a lot
• 1:04:22
  of yield for anthologies in a lot of markets.
• 1:04:26
  Just like James Patterson tried a couple of years ago to to
• 1:04:29
  publicize the novellas where he Co wrote with a lot of really
• 1:04:33
  great authors. Nothing wrong with the material,
• 1:04:36
  it's just that there's the the margins that the bigger houses
• 1:04:39
  can make on something like that isn't worth their time because
• 1:04:42
  they have to spend as much time marketing that as they do a full
• 1:04:44
  length novel. So the idea of taking an idea to
• 1:04:50
  an independent publisher like Shotgun Honey or Level Best
• 1:04:55
  Books or Ocean View Press or several others that I I'm not
• 1:04:59
  remembering right now is more accepted now than it used to be.
• 1:05:04
  You don't have to be published by Simon and Schuster, a Random
• 1:05:06
  House. These publishing houses are
• 1:05:09
  published with some really great books and a lot of different
• 1:05:12
  genres. You look at self-publishing.
• 1:05:14
  Let's say you don't get that and you they just don't understand
• 1:05:18
  your story. But you have a lot of faith in
• 1:05:20
  it. self-publishing has definitely gotten a lot more
• 1:05:22
  respect, and it should have been respected all along.
• 1:05:26
  The problem with that is people who engage in that endeavour
• 1:05:30
  need to know their limits because you will go broke really
• 1:05:35
  fast. If you think you can throw money
• 1:05:38
  at this and make it a winner, it doesn't work that way.
• 1:05:43
  You have to spend. But here's what you do have to
• 1:05:46
  spend your money on. You have to spend your money on
• 1:05:48
  a good editor who's going to tell you the truth.
• 1:05:50
  All of our family probably support us.
• 1:05:53
  We show it to our wives, our mothers, whomever they love it.
• 1:05:57
  We're the best thing since sliced bread.
• 1:05:59
  I don't understand why you're not.
• 1:06:01
  You're not already optioned for a movie.
• 1:06:03
  That's and that's great, and sometimes that's an honest
• 1:06:07
  critique. But you need to spend the money
• 1:06:09
  to get someone to professionally edit it and proofread it for you
• 1:06:12
  so that they will tell you exactly what is right with it,
• 1:06:16
  what's wrong with it, and then they can make it.
• 1:06:18
  You can hopefully be open enough to making it better.
• 1:06:21
  Then, when you're actually ready to bring that book to market,
• 1:06:24
  whether you show it to beta readers, we're going to give you
• 1:06:27
  honest feedback and quick feedback.
• 1:06:30
  Reasonably quick. You don't want to be sitting
• 1:06:32
  around years waiting for your novella to to come back with
• 1:06:36
  edits from them. You have to invest in someone
• 1:06:39
  who's going to properly format it and make sure that it's ready
• 1:06:42
  to for E publication or print publication.
• 1:06:47
  And those are two different things.
• 1:06:49
  Then you have to invest in someone who's going to do a good
• 1:06:51
  cover for it as well. You don't want to have a, you
• 1:06:55
  know, some a bit of clip art and Times New Roman five.
• 1:06:58
  You need to have someone who's not only going to design the
• 1:07:01
  cover, but also if you're going to have print the spine and the
• 1:07:04
  back cover too. So you have to people have to
• 1:07:08
  understand that there is money to it that needs to be invested
• 1:07:11
  in this kind of an endeavor and then you have to come up with a
• 1:07:15
  marketing plan. How are you going to push this
• 1:07:18
  out there? The worst thing in my opinion
• 1:07:21
  that people can do is spend their money on tchotchkes.
• 1:07:24
  You know, like you see people who who come up with stickers or
• 1:07:29
  you know these kitschy things that they include with the books
• 1:07:31
  when they send them out. That's really great.
• 1:07:33
  If you've got this is your third or fourth book and you're you've
• 1:07:37
  got money that you really want to invest in that along that
• 1:07:39
  way. For me, anything else beside the
• 1:07:43
  book, if you've got money left over make sure you put it into
• 1:07:47
  social media ads or ads on Amazon or Twitter or someplace
• 1:07:53
  where you're going to have something some measurable metric
• 1:07:56
  for the dollars invested. Because there are no shortage of
• 1:08:00
  people that are going to line up out there when they find out
• 1:08:02
  yourself publishing a book to try to get some of that money
• 1:08:05
  off you. Like I said some of the works.
• 1:08:07
  I mean there there's a place where the bookmarks and the and
• 1:08:11
  the stickers and and stuff like that.
• 1:08:13
  But if you're starting out and you don't really have a budget
• 1:08:16
  for that stuff, stick to the basics and then through your
• 1:08:21
  beta readers, see if they can help you once the book finally
• 1:08:25
  goes on sale, leaving reviews, word of mouth, all of that helps
• 1:08:30
  you. You might not make the New York
• 1:08:32
  Times bestseller list, but you're definitely going to have
• 1:08:35
  a product that you're proud of and that represents you for
• 1:08:38
  future work. Yeah, Well, I mean just kind
• 1:08:40
  from my experience, I mean, especially for some of the
• 1:08:45
  younger listeners out there, like if if you're in college
• 1:08:50
  right now, consider doing what I did and take some marketing
• 1:08:53
  classes, take some, take some graphic design classes even
• 1:08:58
  because like you mentioned, you know, and having someone design
• 1:09:03
  a cover. I'm not trying to like, you
• 1:09:06
  know, say I'm, I'm terrific or I'm wonderful, like taking
• 1:09:10
  graphic design course and learning it like topography
• 1:09:13
  really helped me. You know, learning page layout
• 1:09:16
  really helped me learn, OK, how do I, how do I properly format?
• 1:09:21
  And at the time, I didn't even realize that that's why I would
• 1:09:25
  use all of this class, why I was, I was just taking these as
• 1:09:28
  electives. But I would, I would also say
• 1:09:32
  the more you can kind of self teach and do yourself within
• 1:09:36
  limits you know do that too if you're going to self publish.
• 1:09:43
  Yeah, definitely. If you've got the formatting
• 1:09:46
  skills and the ability to do your own covers and and spine
• 1:09:50
  and and back cover, that's fantastic, Yeah.
• 1:09:52
  And but the one thing that I owe that I really don't think
• 1:09:56
  anybody can really do themselves and and that's the proofreading
• 1:09:59
  and the copy editing that's that's definitely going to
• 1:10:02
  require an investment. Yeah.
• 1:10:04
  So definitely, well, I mean I think we've we've covered a lot
• 1:10:10
  of ground in just over an hour and I really appreciate your
• 1:10:17
  time. Before we head off, I do notice
• 1:10:21
  that you that you're publishing this through Silverback
• 1:10:24
  Publishing. So is that your outlet or your
• 1:10:30
  personal imprint? Or how is you know?
• 1:10:35
  Right, it's a it's an idea. That James apartment over at the
• 1:10:39
  bestseller Books and his own group, BTS Designs, Myself,
• 1:10:43
  Steve and some other people came up with to try to give voice to
• 1:10:48
  the novella format. Because we believe there is an
• 1:10:50
  appetite for shorter fiction. Because sometimes, as I said
• 1:10:55
  earlier, someone will be writing that thriller and they'll have a
• 1:10:58
  great scene, but it doesn't fit in with something well, doesn't
• 1:11:01
  mean you throw it out as I was just talking about you might be
• 1:11:04
  able to recycle it as something else.
• 1:11:06
  So we we talked to a lot of, and I definitely talked to a lot of
• 1:11:10
  people while I've been doing my own podcast that had ideas that
• 1:11:15
  weren't necessarily novels but they shouldn't be thrown at and
• 1:11:17
  they were too long for short stories.
• 1:11:20
  So that makes the novella a more of a appetizing project.
• 1:11:24
  So it's something that we're we're Silverback is something
• 1:11:27
  that we're all working on together.
• 1:11:30
  We've got a My Book will be first.
• 1:11:31
  We've got a couple of others that we're really excited about
• 1:11:34
  that we think people are going to enjoy and we're learning the
• 1:11:37
  process of publishing because there's an awful lot that you
• 1:11:40
  don't realize until you actually start doing it.
• 1:11:44
  So there's marketing plans there.
• 1:11:47
  And we all brought a different group of strengths to the
• 1:11:51
  enterprise, you know, either as creatives, writing the stuff,
• 1:11:55
  helping to get the production team together to actually bring
• 1:11:58
  it to market, doing the marketing.
• 1:12:00
  Once we do have a product, a lot of different ideas.
• 1:12:03
  So it was. It's been a really great
• 1:12:06
  experience to this point and it seems like it's only going to
• 1:12:09
  get better now that we're getting closer to publication.
• 1:12:12
  Awesome. And you know, how has the
• 1:12:15
  experience of podcasting been been for you?
• 1:12:19
  I don't know how long you've been doing it, but.
• 1:12:23
  I've been doing it for about 3 years and it's been fantastic.
• 1:12:27
  Yeah, it's been absolutely fantastic.
• 1:12:29
  I I was fortunate enough to link up with my very good friend Pam
• 1:12:33
  Stack, who's been a supporter of mine since the book you're
• 1:12:38
  reading right now. Sympathy for the Devil came out
• 1:12:40
  years ago and she's been a dear friend and and very encouraging
• 1:12:46
  throughout my career. And she said, you know, you've
• 1:12:49
  got a lot of experience. Why have you ever thought about
• 1:12:51
  doing a podcast? And that's where the idea of
• 1:12:54
  Spies, Lies and Private Eyes was born.
• 1:12:56
  And I record them every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 Eastern
• 1:13:00
  Time. I record them on Zoom.
• 1:13:02
  I don't have a big studio or a lot of fancy sound equipment,
• 1:13:07
  but it's given me the opportunity to speak to writers
• 1:13:10
  at every stage of their career. Whether they're best selling
• 1:13:13
  authors, household names like Jack Carr, who I was really
• 1:13:17
  inspired by, all the way down to people who are just this is
• 1:13:22
  their first book and they're they're just starting out.
• 1:13:24
  Or people who've had interesting lives who have decided to give
• 1:13:28
  novel writing a shot. It's been it's been great being
• 1:13:31
  able to talk to all of those different types of people and
• 1:13:34
  bring a bunch of different experiences and approaches to
• 1:13:38
  writing to the listeners. So it it's been a great ride
• 1:13:41
  it's. Been I can as a listener.
• 1:13:45
  I've been listening probably since December.
• 1:13:48
  It's been great just to tune in and you know hear perspectives
• 1:13:53
  and you know then check out a few authors who I hadn't even
• 1:13:58
  heard of you know so you know on on behalf of you know of a few
• 1:14:04
  listeners thank you and your you know your your service there is
• 1:14:10
  much appreciated so. Well, thank you.
• 1:14:13
  It's my honor it it's great being able to to bring new
• 1:14:16
  voices to people and and there's a lot of really great writers
• 1:14:18
  out there in the thriller with crime genres.
• 1:14:21
  So I encourage everybody keep your eyes open because there's a
• 1:14:24
  lot of really great stuff coming out in the next year or so.
• 1:14:27
  Indeed. Anything that you want to promo
• 1:14:30
  before we you know head head out.
• 1:14:34
  I I will leave links you know to you know, Chicago 63 and your
• 1:14:41
  website and everything else but anything you want to mention
• 1:14:44
  specifically. It's just that all of my
• 1:14:47
  backlist is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, in Prince, in
• 1:14:52
  digital. Some of them are even
• 1:14:54
  audiobooks, especially my Westerns.
• 1:14:56
  A lot of those are are available in audiobooks as well.
• 1:15:00
  And I would say to people, you know what, Even if you're not
• 1:15:03
  going to read one of my Westerns, don't be afraid to
• 1:15:05
  give it a shot. Because the genre itself is not
• 1:15:08
  just a bunch of people in cowboy hats and horses shooting
• 1:15:11
  everyone at high noon. It there's some really great
• 1:15:14
  storytelling being told there by artists today and also from the
• 1:15:18
  past. So I would say, give it a shot
• 1:15:21
  and if you you land on something you like, you'll you'll you'll
• 1:15:24
  have a whole different type of book that you might enjoy.
• 1:15:28
  And always please, no matter what happens, no matter what
• 1:15:31
  genre you read, even if it's nonfiction, please leave a
• 1:15:34
  review either on Amazon, Goodreads, or someplace else.
• 1:15:38
  Because every one of those reviews, even if you didn't like
• 1:15:40
  it, be honest, leave an honest review.
• 1:15:43
  But every one of those reviews helps an author get a little bit
• 1:15:46
  higher in the ranking, and every little bit helps, especially
• 1:15:49
  with a crowded marketplace like there is now.
• 1:15:51
  I I appreciate you saying that because the one thing that I've
• 1:15:58
  that I've gotten a lot of I I always get people who you know
• 1:16:03
  send me DMS on Facebook or you know messenger man.
• 1:16:09
  I loved your first novella. When is the second one coming,
• 1:16:13
  coming out And I'm like, well, you know, I appreciate it, but
• 1:16:16
  can you, you know, can you please go on Amazon and you know
• 1:16:20
  leave a a review or something like that?
• 1:16:23
  I I don't know why I think people tend to forget the, you
• 1:16:27
  know, leading a a review sometimes.
• 1:16:31
  Right. So, and it really helps too,
• 1:16:33
  especially if someone gets a lot of solid reviews, even if
• 1:16:35
  they're self published. And this is something that has
• 1:16:37
  definitely changed since you self published, even only a few
• 1:16:41
  years ago. Is that if it gets if it's well
• 1:16:43
  reviewed and well received and you query somebody and an agent
• 1:16:48
  or a publisher for your second book, even though the first
• 1:16:51
  one's self published, it can get a lot of attention that way
• 1:16:54
  because nowadays publishers really appreciate a good
• 1:16:57
  following when they bring an author in.
• 1:16:59
  So even though yeah, maybe the book is self published, if you
• 1:17:03
  leave that review you are helping that author's career in
• 1:17:07
  the future. So that's why I always say
• 1:17:09
  please do that. I would say the same of
• 1:17:11
  podcasting too. Like I said I've I've been
• 1:17:14
  podcasting since since I was 14. You know and that was real
• 1:17:21
  before people even commonly knew what a podcast was.
• 1:17:26
  I I I would say in the same thing like you know if if
• 1:17:30
  there's a you know not everyone is going to be a Joe Rogan or an
• 1:17:34
  Adam Adam Cole or or or take take your pick that that's the
• 1:17:38
  one thing I get from like a lot of my friends or you know from
• 1:17:42
  some from some younger people. I know I'm, I just turned 29 but
• 1:17:47
  I know some 21 year olds are like man, I, you know I want to
• 1:17:51
  start a podcast meet the next Joe Rogan and and it's like,
• 1:17:54
  well, I'm almost 30. I'm nowhere near Rogan's level
• 1:18:00
  and I'm probably never going to be.
• 1:18:03
  But I found, I found a niche. I've I've built you know a
• 1:18:10
  pretty good following. The other thing I've found is
• 1:18:12
  whether it be writing or podcasting or whatever,
• 1:18:16
  persistence is key to my first short story that I wrote back in
• 1:18:23
  2014. It actually did absurdly well,
• 1:18:27
  considering that I basically wrote AI was in a competition
• 1:18:31
  with a friend of mine from high school.
• 1:18:33
  We we made a we made a really stupid kind of bet that we were
• 1:18:39
  both going to just publish like a novel or short story, just
• 1:18:45
  kind of first draft, put it on Amazon and see which one of us
• 1:18:49
  would sell better. I I won somehow.
• 1:18:55
  And so my first short story, yeah I went back and read it
• 1:18:59
  recently and it has some holes but it's not terrible either.
• 1:19:04
  I would also say persistence is key for, you know, for writing
• 1:19:10
  or. And having a thick skin too and
• 1:19:12
  and being able to be self critical, it's like Sonny Liston
• 1:19:16
  always said, he said, Sonny Liston said Everybody's got a
• 1:19:19
  plan till they get hit, Mike Tyson later said.
• 1:19:22
  Everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the face.
• 1:19:24
  It's the same. Same principle applies in that
• 1:19:28
  once you put something on paper and then you have the guts to
• 1:19:30
  show it to somebody, which is why the editing is important and
• 1:19:35
  they tear it apart or they just didn't like it.
• 1:19:38
  If you can't take that, then this it is not for you.
• 1:19:41
  This art form is not for you because you're always going to
• 1:19:45
  get people. There are going to be some
• 1:19:46
  people who love everything you do, and there are going to be
• 1:19:48
  some people that no matter what you do, they're just not going
• 1:19:51
  to like it. And then there's the people in
• 1:19:53
  the middle that are willing to give you a chance.
• 1:19:55
  So but you have to be open to that feedback and and
• 1:19:58
  constructive feedback, not just somebody looking to tear you
• 1:20:01
  down. You know, if somebody who's
• 1:20:03
  never swung a Golf Club before tells you that your swing is
• 1:20:06
  off, well. OK, that doesn't really help me,
• 1:20:09
  but if a golf professional pulls you aside and says this is how
• 1:20:11
  you do it, you're better off listening to them because they
• 1:20:14
  know what they're talking about. Yeah, most definitely so.
• 1:20:19
  Well, you know, Terence, I really appreciate your time.
• 1:20:23
  I'd love for you to come back. You know what?
• 1:20:26
  When you know the Dallas Trilogy, when one of the books
• 1:20:30
  is, when do you think you'll publish the 1st?
• 1:20:36
  I've been fortunate enough that my agent has found a couple of
• 1:20:39
  houses that are interested. So right now we're we're talking
• 1:20:42
  with them to see what's going to happen and when.
• 1:20:45
  So the best I could say about that is stay tuned, I hope to
• 1:20:48
  have some good news soon. All right.
• 1:20:50
  Well, you know, I'd love to have you back on, you know, as we
• 1:20:54
  draw closer to to that day. I really appreciate you coming
• 1:20:57
  on. And folks, I really appreciate
• 1:21:01
  you guys for listening. You know, Terence is a a great
• 1:21:06
  guy and as I said he has a lot of wisdom and experience in the
• 1:21:11
  writing field and I I really thank you for your time Sir, so.
• 1:21:15
  No problem at all. Anybody has any questions, you
• 1:21:18
  can find me at my website, the links will be here.
• 1:21:20
  Just send me an e-mail and I'll do my best to help you out.
• 1:21:24
  All righty, folks. Well, thank you for listening
• 1:21:27
  and I'll see you on the live show on Wednesday.
• 1:21:33
  Thanks for listening to the Whitfield report on the NGC
• 1:21:37
  Network. Please visit Sam's website at
• 1:21:40
  www.thesamwhitfield.com and support Sam on
• 1:21:45
  patreon@patreon.com/whitfield Report Until next time.
• 1:21:51
  God bless God, save this great Nation and God, Freedom, legacy
• 1:21:57
  in that order.