Complementing my interviews, the Author Spotlights are now running every weekday and this week features five authors from publisher Apostrophe Books. Today’s spotlight, the one hundred and eighty-ninth, is of YA author, poet and interviewee Nick Orsini, the fourth of this week’s Apostrophe Books authors.
Nick Orsini is a 26-year-old writer currently residing in Queens, New York. He’s been writing seriously since 2008 when, after graduating from Marist College, he began his first novel, Two Wrongs Make a Vice. He also writes for various online outlets including Thought Catalog and TellMeSomething.org. He writes the online poetry collection, http://Adorkablelife.com which features hundreds of poems, letters and songs.
He also works in advertising, producing television commercials for a range of clients large and small. In his free time, you can find him playing video games, listening to pop-punk, watching pro-wrestling, digging around for treasures on Ebay, collecting Funko Pop Figures and Adidas Sambas, and searching for the perfect Corgi companion for his new apartment.
He is the author of two novels, Two Wrongs Make a Vice and Fingerless Gloves, two poetry anthologies, Bruce Willis with Hair and The Human Projector. He is currently in New York working on his third feature novel.
*
And now from the author himself:
This is insane. I remember the exact day this all happened. I had been working a dead-end job in a mailroom from late 2008 through 2009 …usually from 8am-9pm, then coming home and eating, then heading up to my old bedroom to write until 10-11pm… then watching Adult Swim until I fell asleep. I finished Two Wrongs just in time to get laid off …and I was on the New Jersey Transit bus home, bummed to tell my parents that I was out of a job. They had sent me to college hoping that I’d conquer the world …now I couldn’t even work in a mailroom. I walked in and told my mom and dad, “Hey, I know this sucks …but I’m going to work on my books and be this writer and everything will work out fine.” My dad’s head about exploded. I started polishing the novel, editing it with friends and by myself. I got a job dispatching limousines …and during the day, the office would be so quiet that I started dreaming up these bizarre poems. In that limo office, I started Adorkabelife.com …a website that mimics the inner workings of my brain. Long story short, the book started to do well …selling in all fifty US states and in 27 different countries. After a year, I returned to New York to work in advertising. I was finally, at 25, able to move out of my parent’s house. I got the itch again, so I started working on Fingerless Gloves at night …I finished it and entered it in the Fiction Fast-Track contest with Apostrophe Books. It boosted my soul through the roof when people chose my book to win.
Fingerless Gloves is about so many things …it’s about living and dying, best friends, girlfriends, drugs, working, college. It’s about this one epic night …and the lead character, Anton, driving around trying to come to terms with an accident his best friend has …but along the way, sort of shedding off these things that make him immature and that make him refuse to learn anything. Through these supporting characters, Anton sees all these different avenues he could go down …and none are too appealing. It’s a story about making your way in the world, even if it takes loss to make you realize all that you had and can still achieve. The book, to me, is uplifting …it’s about living up to the expectation that you can make so many things better and so many people happy. Where Anton begins the book and where he ends it are two completely different places. He was one of the most rewarding characters to write.
I’m literally writing all the time. I’ll sing into my iPhone, or jot down ideas on Post-It notes to stick all over my desk. I’m a mess. This third book is the first book where I kept a notebook and wrote backstories and ideas for all the characters and the entire plot. I don’t think ebooks or Kindles will save publishing, I think authors will save publishing. You have to think of all these ways to tell a great story …to experiment as much with the novel as a format as with the distribution of writing. To write a book isn’t enough …it’s about putting that book in the hands of the right audience. The whole thing needs a facelift. I just want to tell great stories …things that remind me of songs I used to listen to or people I used to know. I’m always looking out for nostalgia.
**
You can find more about Nick and his book ‘Fingerless Gloves’:
- On Apostrophe Books: http://apostrophebooks.com/fingerlessgloves
- On Apostrophe Books: http://apostrophebooks.com/writers/nick-orsini
- On Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16064385-fingerless-gloves
- On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FingerlessGlovesByNickOrsini
- On Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/apostrophebooks/fingerless-gloves-by-nick-orsini
And you can buy ‘Fingerless Gloves’ from:
- Amazon USA: http://www.amazon.com/Fingerless-Gloves-ebook/dp/B009K4U6UG
- Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fingerless-Gloves-ebook/dp/B009K4U6UG
- iBookstore USA: http://goo.gl/txhCn
- iBookstore UK: http://goo.gl/3vK7n
- Kobo USA: http://goo.gl/uVtsi
- Kobo UK: http://goo.gl/uVtsi
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Morgen 'with an E' Bailey 