Hello all and welcome to our continuing series of author interviews. Today’s guest, Giacomo “Jim” Giammatteo, holds the record (as of May 2018) for the most books published in a year.
Care to take a guess how many? I’ll tell you now they wouldn’t all fit in a breadbox. Maybe a bread carton and probably a bread truck.
Thirty-seven (37)!
Perhaps one of those books deals with writer’s cramp?
Giacomo “Jim” Giammatteo’s Bio
Jim’s originally from Philly and now a resident of Houston, Texas and writes gritty crime dramas dealing with murder, mystery and family. When not writing about family matters he writes children’s books, and when he’s not writing about murder and mayhem with or without children involved, he’s authored books on grammar, writing and publishing.
Jim currently has three mystery series going in addition to running his own publishing company, and he started writing after having two heart attacks and two strokes in two weeks
I’d like everyone to stand up and give Giacomo “Jim” Giammatteo a big round of applause for taking part in our exciting adventure.
Jim and I talked about surviving stroke, writing for his son, writing for himself, writing writing writing, having a wild life sanctuary, biotech, being an Isaac Asimov clone, character versus plot, overlapping story lines, why hard boiled detectives can’t say “Oh, sugar!”, transitioning from being a corporate headhunter to hunting mysterious heads and more.
You can find links to Jim’s books on the right or at the bottom of this post (depending on your device). You’ll also find links to his sites underneath the video.
The Interview
Jim’s Links
Jim on Amazon
Jim’s site
Jim’s Careers website
Jim’s Publishing website
Jim on Facebook
Jim on LinkedIn
An excerpt from Jim’s work in progress Justice Spoons
Justice looked up at the sky. Not a cloud was in sight, but that didn’t stop him from wishin’ it would rain. It had rained not far from where he was, so maybe it would come his way. He wished for it. He wished it so bad it hurt. But then again, a lot of things hurt Justice. He’d been hurtin’ all his life.
Justice had been a frail little boy, but he’d grown into a hard-nosed man. Everything about him was hard. His mama made sure of that. He didn’t have no daddy, leastwise, none he knew of. The one time he asked his mama who his daddy was, his mama beat him so bad he never asked again.
Not knowing who his daddy was, itched under his skin, so he kept trying to find out—but not by asking her. No sir. He might not be much educated, but he wasn’t dumb. Even a dog knew what drew a beating.
From time to time, Justice tried getting clues. On the few occasions that his mama had guests over, he listened from his room down in the cellar to see what she said. He put his ear to the ceiling and listened as hard as he could. The only thing he ever heard was her saying his daddy was a cur, and it was better he went where curs were supposed to go.
When he got older and could read a little, and when he had a light to read by, Justice looked up that word “cur.” He found it had two meanings. One meant a dog—and he didn’t much reckon his daddy was a dog—but the other meant a coward. Justice often thought about it, and he reckoned he would rather his daddy have been a dog, knowing how his mama felt about cowards, that is.
Sometimes, when his mama had guests over, they would get into a conversation and suddenly start laughing. Justice listened to what they said, but he never understood what was so funny. It tended to confuse him, though if given to consideration he wasn’t much for laughter. The few times he tried laughing, the noise echoed off the concrete walls and bounced around. It kind of made him feel like the walls were laughing at him. Justice didn’t like that; in fact, he didn’t like cellars, and he often wondered about them. From what he could hear of the other kids, they didn’t have cellars. Only Justice and his mama were lucky enough for that. That’s what she said.
When his mama left the house, which was often, he would stand on the old milk box, with its four splintered slats, and peek out the window. It was dark ‘cause the windows were taped up, and nobody could see him, but he could see the kids playing through the holes in the tape. If he’d have had a nickel to bet, he’d put it down that they were laughing, he just hoped it wasn’t at him.
And he could see it rain through the holes in that tape, sometimes he could. Not often, though. It didn’t rain much out in that part of Texas. Leastwise, that’s what mama said. It was a shame, ’cause Justice liked rain. He liked the sound it made after the puddles formed and the raindrops splashed and splashed over and over again. Sometimes the other kids would play in it. He saw them through the holes in the tape too.
He wondered why they wanted to get wet. At first he thought them stupid, but the more he watched them, and the more he heard them laugh, the more he wanted to play too. He’d wouldn’t mind getting wet if he could laugh about it, even if Mama beat him.
A loud thunderclap brought him to focus on the present. He pressed his face against the side window of the van, stained with splatters from the mud-slicked road he’d encountered on the drive over, and he stared at the kids in the street. Rain had begun, like he prayed for, and it was causing the kids to scatter and run for home.
A moment later, Justice saw what he was looking for, a calico Manx, conspicuous for the lack of a tail, and he stepped out of the van and scooped it up. He opened the side door and tossed the cat inside, then got behind the steering wheel.
The rain was really coming down now, but he sure wished it would rain harder.
A good rain always took away that crazy feeling he got—like he wanted to kill someone—and he might have to do that before the night was over.