Hi my book Leaving Cleveland can be purchased at an E-book HERE or on Amazon.
As you can see it has been almost a year since I announced the completion of my fictional memoir ” Leaving Cleveland.” What am I up to? Well, as one literary agent expressed ” You are a good writer and this is a good story and we would be interested in representing you BUT……you are not famous, yet.” He was absolutely right. Not to be deterred, I decided to go the self-publishing route. I have been researching the best way and have learned a lot about self-publishing and publishing on demand. The more I learned the clearer it became that for this book it is the best way. I have been in contact with BookBaby and have gotten all their info and costs and will also consider other publishing options . I will be also applying for a grant through the college I teach photography , Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. They award grants to help their faculty complete projects they are working on. If I do receive the grant, the wheels will be in motion and I hope to have this book out by early fall, just in time for the holiday season.
If you have been following my posts you will also notice that I have changed the title to Leaving Cleveland. When you follow the upcoming posts and read the book will make more sense. So please sign up for notices of new posts and tell your friends. If you are new to this blog , you can read some of the entries, although I will be submitting more entries in each new post as I keep you up to date with my experience of self publishing. I have also made a slight change to the cover, let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions. See if you can guess what the story is about by the cover….My goal is to post once a week and as things start to getting closer to publishing date even more.
I wanted to share my exciting news that my book Leaving Cleveland is off the final Proof Reader. What does that mean? It is the first step to publishing my book. If there aren’t any major issues I should get the copy back mid January and will send the corrected manuscript and art work/cover to the printer.
Of course there are many potential setbacks to delay the final printing but as it stands the final book should be printed and out in the market by March. I wanted to give a big should out to Saudamini Siegrist for doing the final edit and really making this book shine. Fortunately I have a patient nature and it really helped moving this project along. It always takes longer than you think but my mantra has has always been ” make this the best possible book regardless of the time it takes to complete.”
The First Step to Publishing a Book:
Leaving Cleveland Proofreading
Congratulations on taking the first step on your publishing journey. Our editing team is now working on your supplied files. If we have any questions we’ll contact you. Otherwise we’ll send you an email in 10-12 business days alerting you that your editing project is complete and that your edited files are available for download in your BookBaby account
As I had mentioned in the past book cover is not final and once the proof reading is complete I will send my art work to professional designers to create the book cover and design the book. My next post will be the actual book cover. So please subscribe and share.
I wanted to express my gratitude to all of you who have supported my project ” Leaving Cleveland” and give you an update before we move on to 2023. I also wanted to have you read the first page of the book.
Where the book stands: My generous sister-in-law, Saudamini Siegrist, who has her Phd in poetry from NYU, offered to edit the book one more time before I send it to the professional proof reader at Bookbaby. Knowing her incredibly sharp skill as an editor, I could not pass up her offer.
So I have been very patient and thankful for her generous support. As of today she is 50% finished with the edit, she is also busy working with the country of Nigera on a project and just finised having an orginal play she wrote perfomed in NYC.
I am hoping she will complete her edit in the next month. At that point I will send it off to the proof reader which takes about 10 to 14 days. When I get it back from the proof reader and make the necessary final changes it will then go off to the Book designer/printer. I will let you know when that happens and the date of publication, which I am still hoping to be March 14th. I will take as much time though to ” get it right” the first time, so as the saying goes ” It is publsihed when it is published.” I made that up, but you get the idea.
A scary moment with the money: Now that I have your attention, as some of know I have created an LLC Boulder Point Publishing and a separate bank account to be sure the money raise will be only used for the book, it is also easier for tax purposes. Well, I also needed a debit card so I could pay Bookbaby directly for the printing and promotion. I received the debit card from the bank, activated the card with a PIN and two days later all the money $5200 disappeared from the account, pretty scary. I called the Bank and they confirmed the account was hacked and the money taken. This happen on a Monday and by Friday the Bank had put my money back into the account, Phew!!!! They would not tell me what actually happened but I can live with that…
As we move forward, I wanted to wish all of you a safe, happy and healthy holiday season and New Year. I have a lot to be thankful for and your support is one my big highlights of 2022. Next year will be the publication of the book. I am so excited to “put it out there” and excited for you to read it. As promised here is the first page of the book, edited:)
As we move forward, I wanted to wish all of you a safe, happy and healthy holiday season and New Year. I have a lot to be thankful for and your support is one my big highlights of 2022. Next year will be the publication of the book. I am so excited to “put it out there” and excited for you to read it. As promised here is the first page of the book,
I wanted out of Cleveland. Immediately after college I moved to Toronto, hoping to land a job as a news photographer, only to be told by the Toronto Star that I needed six months residency in Canada before I could be hired. I should have known this. I headed back to the US, driving southeast on Route 403, my Toyota Corolla hugging Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls, en route to Boston where I had a friend, Robert, who said I could crash on his couch until I found work. I had $500 in my pocket.
I drove straight through, from Toronto to Boston, without stopping. When I arrived in Boston, I met up with Robert who was living in an apartment near Harvard Square with his girlfriend Ivey and Felix, a semi-domesticated feral cat I was warned to avoid.
I had known Robert since I was 14. He had long blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and a swimmer’s body. Soft-spoken, confident, introspective, girls swooned over him, including Ivey who had moved from Finland to the States to live with him. He was everything I wanted to be. My mother would call it goy envy. Still, as opposite as Robert and I were, we connected. We both loved jazz and eventually formed a trio with Robert on congas, our friend Alex on standup bass and me on alto sax. We would jam in Robert’s attic for hours, smoking pot and pretending it was the 50’s, and we were the Coltrane trio. Robert’s father, a lawyer, would sometimes tape record our sessions and wait till we came downstairs to tell us how wonderful we sounded. His hipness freaked me out.
I spent two weeks in Boston looking for work, sleeping on a mattress on the floor and avoiding Felix as best I could. Eventually I picked up some freelance photography work through the Associated Press, photographing “weather shots” while I waited to hear from a couple of newspapers about a staff position. It seemed there were no real jobs to be found. With my money running out, I took a job as a waiter in the Seafood district at the Yankee Lobster. I was feeling pretty low and thinking maybe I should head back to Ohio and work for my dad. He owned an outdoorsman store in East Cleveland, which never made any sense to me since he was not in the least interested in outdoor activities. He spent all of his days inside, working ten-hour days, seven days a week.
This is an excerpt of Chapter 21 and to set it up: Izzy is on one of her ” lost weekend” episodes and can not be found. The publisher Jahnie, of the magazine Vinyl, is freaking out since he went out of his way to convince Dustin Hoffman to be photographed for the cover of the magazine by Izzy. Tensions are mounting for Tiny; Sam and Jahnie since Izzy is not returning her calls and Hoffman and his entourage are on their way to the studio. Izzy finally makes an appearance and declares to Sam that she does not feel like taking any photos today and tell him to call off the shoot with Hoffman, but it is too late …..
Chapter 21
Dustin Pays a Visit
“Good morning, Tiny. Have a good weekend?”
“Not bad. Went to CBGB’s and saw this band called Blondie. The lead singer was smokin’.”
“Sorry I missed it. So, what’s happening this week? Any traveling?”
“Izzy left a note for you that she wanted you to start pulling out these images from her archive and taking them to the lab to make 8” x 10” work prints.”
Tiny handed me a sheet of paper with the names of famous people
Izzy had photographed.
“What’s this about and anyway shouldn’t you be on it?” I said, looking at the list.
“She is putting together a book and I have better things to do.” Tiny turned away and stared at the calendar on her desk. “She does have a big a shoot in the studio on
Friday for Vinyl and wants to have these images printed up by tomorrow. So, get busy.”
“Are you going to tell me who is coming by this Friday, or am I going to have to guess?” I tried to see what was written on the calendar. Tiny looked up at me. “Dustin Hoffman.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“Seriously,” she said. “He’s between films and Jahnie met him at a party last week and someone convinced him to have his portrait taken by Izzy,”
“Benjamin from The Graduate for fuck’s sake! Great movie!”
“Personally, my favorite was Kramer vs. Kramer. Nailed the divorced dad and I should know.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll track down these chromes and get prints made. Is Izzy coming in today?”
“Nope. Not till tomorrow. She’s off on one her lost weekends. Probably see her on the side of some milk carton one day.” Tiny let out an unexpected snort.
Izzy didn’t show up till Wednesday afternoon and Tiny was not happy. The phone never stopped ringing. Jahnie was freaking out, wondering what had happened to Izzy. He was responsible for getting Hoffman to the studio that Friday and according to Tiny was having doubts if that was a good idea.
Izzy entered the studio as if her absence was never noticed. As soon as she entered Tiny jumped out of her seat. “Where the fuck have you been? Janie’s been calling for the last two days!”
The cover may change again when I had it over to a professional designer:)
Fall is usually the month of transition and this blog is no exception. I will streamlining my blogs to focus on my book Leaving Cleveland, out in March or 2023.
I am in the research phase but know that I will be changing the link to this blog to just Leaving Cleveland. For those who are subscribing be on the look out for that change so that you do not miss out on updates for the book.
This is a short blog but I have been asked ” why is your publication date March 14th ( presale on January 14th) ? March 14th marks the birthday of my mother-in-law Ann Siegrist who passed away in 2014 at the age 89. She was a voracious reader, a kind person and made the best pies ever.
The joy of self-publishing is I get to call the shots and have control over the final publication. It also means I am responsible for everything. As a freelance for over 40 years you get use to that pressure. Finally I have been tweaking the cover and the last version is what you see here. That said once I hand off my book to the printer/designer…it may change again…but for now I like it….
Thanks for your time and please share and subscribe ….
“Enry the Eighth ” photo by Johnny Strand the Photo Man. 1981
Exclusive Content:
It appears I don’t throw anything away. When I was writing Leaving Cleveland, I went through my old polaroids of people who I photographed before handing the camera with film to the photographers I was assisting. The above image is the actual polaroid from the Henry the Eight Shoot Eats Ice Cream, taken in 1981….that is 41 years ago!!!!!
In the book, the protagonist, Sam, really begins his photo assisting career with ” Johnny Strand the Photo Man” a high end commercial photographer who smokes a lot of pot.
In Chapter 7 I”m ‘Enry the Eighth I Am, Johnny business is tanking and is trying to figure out how to turn it around. Sam is about to lose his job, which would be the end of the story but, Jenny ( Johnny’s photo rep) tells Johnny if he can come up with a great test image of food, she may be able to snag the Burger King account ….the Burger King morphs into King Henry the 8th eating ice cream, iconic.
Reality Check: For those unfamiliar with the freelance life of a photographer, it is a life of peaks and valleys. Never knowing where and when the next job is coming wondering how you are going to pay the fixed expenses. In the commercial photography world the expenses are high and so are the rewards. The trick is to string enough jobs together to stay afloat…It is not a career for those with ” thin skin.”
Excerpt from Chapter Seven from book Leaving Cleveland out in the world March 2023.
Everything Johnny said about the job proved true. Long hours, demanding clients, and a lot of unwarranted despair. My day started at 8. Johnny would walk in at 8:30 with blood shot eyes, smelling of Jasmine, humming some Reggae tune and looking very happy. By lunchtime his glow was gone and in need of replenishment. Our lunch orders went out at noon to the deli downstairs. This was when Johnny absented himself, to reappear an hour later just as the sandwiches arrived, his glow back. That’s when Jenny, his rep, would arrive and join us and we’d sit as a team around the oak table and eat.
“Hey Johnny, how’s it going?” Jenny would ask. She was slender, mousy brown hair, a beauty mark on her right cheek and always dressed in a tight-fitting button-down shirt tucked into a long black skirt, which highlighted her narrow waist. She’d have on her signature scarf, always very colorful, meticulously tied around her neck. She was from Patterson, New Jersey, and had a thick Jersey accent.
On my first day at the oak table Johnny asked her, “Any news about the Burger
King account?”
She smiled and said, “It’s between you and Tom Brody, but the art buyer said she liked the fact that you shoot other things besides food. I think you need to set up a test shoot of something with food that I can take over to her by the end of the week.”
“Like what?” Johnny responded, his mellowness unmellowing.
“I don’t know. You’re the creative. You come up with something,” Jenny said.
Johnny put his head down on the table like a child taking an afternoon nap in school. For five minutes we all just stared at him. Suddenly he raised his right hand with his forefinger pointing to the ceiling.
“Let’s photograph Henry the Eighth eating ice cream.”
“Genius!” Jenny exclaimed. “That will combine your talent with people and food.
Who can we get to play Henry?”
“Get the Funny Face catalog,” Johnny commanded. “They owe us a favor and I think there are few models there that will want to do this.”
Jenny pulled out the catalog and Johnny flipped through its pages. After about ten minutes he slammed his fingers on a headshot and declared, “Tom Lang, he’s perfect— belly, beard, and all. I will get Ong to style it. Call Barbara and see if she’s available to help.”
The studio was instantly abuzz. Jenny was on the phone convincing Barbara, a food stylist, that doing this photo test would help her career. Johnny was on his way to the elevator. Turning back to us, he announced, “I’ll recruit Ong.”
Jenny got off the phone and looked at me.
“We are on! We got the model. We got the food stylist. And now we cross our fingers and hope Johnny convinces Ong to do him a favor.”
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Ong.”
“Johnny met her about five years ago and it was love at first bite. She moved into his apartment the next day.”
“So why wouldn’t she do him a favor?” I asked.
“Because she is about money and is not into doing favors unless there is money involved.”
Leaving Cleveland ©2022 a fictional memoir 