RedPubPod #038: “There Are a Lot of World-Class Books That Never Find a Publisher” with Joseph Citro

[00:00:01] This is RedPubPod, a podcast from Red Hog Publications. RedPubPod Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening out there in podcast land. Welcome to yet another slam-packed issue of RedPubPod. And you know who we are.

[00:00:24] We are your favorite small little press located in Catawba Valley Community College in Darling Sweet Hickory, North Carolina. We've got a very special guest today who I'll introduce in a moment, but I do want to share that this is one of those unusual podcasts where Patty gets to do her own thing, because Robert's not able to join us today and Richard will be doing this in post as far as editing goes.

[00:00:51] So I get to be the queen of RedPubPod today and I'm thrilled. So that's why today it's just me and Joseph and I couldn't be happier. And now again, let me go ahead and properly introduce our guest. Today I'm here with our guest veteran storyteller and Vermont's own, Joseph Citro. Yay! You know what?

[00:01:15] We don't do as many novels as folks know, but this one came to us in a very unusual fashion. Joseph, I'm going to ask you a question that kind of helps our audience out. We are blessed to have published your book, The Gore, but it's got an unusual backstory. And would you mind sharing with me and with our audience kind of the unique journey that The Gore has represented? Because it's not necessarily new, is it?

[00:01:44] Well, it's been around forever, but I just got around to writing about it. I guess it was published around 2000 by Warner Books. And since then, it was picked up by the University Press of New England. I was pretty happy with that because there were some major changes between what Warner Books did with it and what University Press of New England did with it.

[00:02:13] But they went out of business. And I'm not going to suggest any causal relationship. I don't think they went out of business because of my book, The Gore. But suddenly there was no gore. And it sort of languished for a while. There was an e-book of it. And to me, e-books are like the ghosts of books.

[00:02:45] Books die. They're no longer available in bookstores. You can't get them off the shelf, but they can still be read. And the writers can still pick up their pittance. But anyway, for a while it languished in e-book land. There was also an audio book performed by a wonderful reader and actor by the name of Chet Williamson. I think you know him.

[00:03:12] We know Chet and we thank Chet because he also did voice work with one of our nonfiction books, an amazing voice actor. He really is. And he worked hard to get the Vermont accent. Vermonters don't sound like other people. And Chet doesn't sound like a Vermonter normally. But he did a wonderful job of sort of affecting the way we talk up here.

[00:03:42] So he did a good job. But anyway, it was unavailable for a while as a real book until you guys picked it up. And it made me really happy because I would hate to see that book vanish. And you've done a really wonderful job of putting it together and presenting it. And the design is wonderful. And I'm a very happy guy.

[00:04:04] I think how we ended up finding out that it is what we call an orphaned book, you know, a book that's out there but has no publisher. I think Robert was the one that found it online or there might have been some kind of maybe it was Facebook, maybe it was X or some social media. How was it? Because Robert was the one who I think discovered that it was available. Right.

[00:04:30] Robert and I have been Facebook friends for years, but we don't we we never met or anything, but we had sort of a cordial online exchange from time to time. And in one of his posts. He said something about looking for books or something like that. And so I I messaged him and I just said, look, I I know you've read my stuff and I've got a book that has been orphaned.

[00:04:59] Would you be interested in taking a look at it or something like that? I think he had already read it. I think I think he had read it. And so he knew the book and grabbed it, wanted it. And I was happy to hand it over. Man, I'll tell you what, I tease him that he's the ambulance chaser of orphaned books. But quite frankly, he is really good about searching the Internet for publishing companies that might have gone out of business.

[00:05:27] Then he looks through their catalog backlist and he sees things that could be of interest. And I really appreciate him doing that. And you are one author that I know that it worked out for us. I think there might have been one other. But I was really excited because I kind of like the genre that you do. And so I don't want to hold anyone in suspense. Would you mind sharing a little bit about what the gore is? It is fiction, but it's kind of unique.

[00:05:57] So share with us. Yeah. You know, there are things I can't talk about. Spoiler alerts. We don't want the spoilers. It's I came across the term gore in a number of ways. And one of them is, of course, blood and guts. But that's not this.

[00:06:20] This in this this gore is an old term for a bit of land that was created by mistake. When early surveyors came through, they surveyed the towns and throughout the town lines. But there were some intersections, usually somewhat triangular. That ended up in no town. They were literally no man's land or as we say today, no person's lands.

[00:06:51] And they that fascinated me because they would be little areas that were they didn't have any laws. There were no laws. There were no police. There was no population. So that interested me. And it occurred to me that that would be a good place for a story to take place.

[00:07:12] And as soon as that occurred to me that I could build a story in one of these gores, I went to work and I started out wanting to write a boy's adventure. Like the ones I used to read when I was a kid, like Treasure Island and Lost World and that sort of thing. But it didn't it didn't really work out that way.

[00:07:39] It certainly could be read by young people, but it's equally a book for adults. And it kind of it kind of took on a life of its own. I I had some ideas about what I wanted to do, but then I wanted to just see what happened. And I it almost wrote itself. I I it it it takes place in a town called Eureka, Vermont.

[00:08:05] And there's no such town in reality, but it has to do with a displaced newspaper man who bought a bar in this town. And into his bar one day walks this guy that works for the power company, a guy by the name of Claude Levine, who's known locally as Lunker Levine. And big, big, big guy, big, big, powerful guy.

[00:08:32] And he walks into the bar and he's he's looking really distraught and disturbed. And he tells this newspaper reporter he was working out on the power lines, out in the woods, out in the midst of the gore. and he saw something that disturbed him greatly.

[00:08:58] And this big, friendly man who rarely went into the bar and normally didn't drink, sat there and had a few shots of bourbon and told about this thing that he saw in the gore. And subsequently, it continues to disturb him to the point that he actually commits suicide.

[00:09:28] And then the book begins because his son and his son's friend and this elderly man that both the boys love and trust decide to go up into the mountain and see what it was that Mr. Levine saw that disturbed him so much that he killed himself. And that's the launching pad. That's where the book starts. And I think that's good enough.

[00:09:59] I will say this as someone who read it, and again, I gravitate towards mystery, suspense, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy. This was my apple. I got taken in fairly quickly, which was fun. But at the same time, it's one of those things where you know you're not going to put the book down, which is, again, totally okay. Okay.

[00:10:25] I'll share also that by the time I got to that point where, okay, we need to figure out what is it in the woods, and then your imagination goes crazy. And there is a twist, and we're not going to go into that, but I didn't expect that twist that came. That came out of nowhere. And now you're reading it again with different eyes, and it's like you're going up and down a roller coaster because it's like, whoa, where did that come from?

[00:10:55] But that's pretty cool. So anyway, we're not giving away any spoilers here, but at the same time, fascinating read, and history has a part to play in this. Oh, it sure does. Yeah. And I think the first clue really is that the little boy is a magician,

[00:11:18] and he's doing tricks, and so he's cautioning the reader not to believe necessarily what you see. And those clues are repeated here and there throughout the book, which is what makes it a mystery. Yeah. I mean, it's full of clues, but, you know, most people wouldn't anticipate where they were leading. Some of my favorite characters are in that book, too,

[00:11:47] like this old guy named Harley Spooner, whose farm is like right on the border of the gore. It's not in the gore, but it's in the town of Eureka, but it's kind of a dirt road way back in the wilderness. And he's like one of these old coots that, lovable old coots, I should say, that peopled my childhood.

[00:12:14] I grew up among guys like Harley. There were old, old Vermont types that are sort of vanishing. And I tried to be faithful with him. An interesting part of the story is, his story, an interesting part of his story is that he had these rocks on his property.

[00:12:40] And there were markings on the rocks. And he was sure that those markings had some religious significance. So that's part of the story. But that came from a newspaper article I read a long time ago about an old guy named Charlie who had rocks on his property, and he thought they were sacred stones. Interesting article.

[00:13:11] And that was kind of in my mind when I was writing the story. I was, those stones, this old guy lives by himself. And after the book came out, I got a letter from a family member of this guy, Charlie. And he picked it up on that. He said, the character in your book is just like my uncle. And I said, yeah, I read the article. So, and he loved it.

[00:13:41] He loved the story because it was, you know, I was honoring his uncle. I did well by his uncle. It wasn't really based on his uncle. I never really knew his uncle. But it was this article in the newspaper that kind of triggered the Harley Spooner character. It's all, you know, it's hard to tell. I don't know how it is with other fiction writers.

[00:14:06] But with me, it's really hard to tell where everything came from. You know, we pluck bits and pieces from our world and from our history and our youth. And then we somehow, there's some kind of a mysterious alchemy that combines all those things and they come out as fiction. Yeah, I could see how you would build on that world.

[00:14:31] And at the same time, it seems to me that you're also taking great pride and incorporating your geography into where you live. And that was something that I, another thing I enjoy reading is about different parts of the world. As I read, I want to, I want to visualize and learn about a new, a new landscape. You portray your beloved Vermont in such great detail. Well, first of all, it makes me want to visit.

[00:15:01] But second of all, it brings a question. This is not your first book. Do you typically write about Vermont or the Green Mountains to be specific? Well, in the beginning, when I first started writing professionally, I had three books in mind that I wanted to write. And I wanted to create what I thought of as sort of a Vermont Gothic. Actually, the first book I wrote was one called Lake Monsters.

[00:15:29] And the second book I wrote was Shadow Child. And then the third novel was this one, The Gore. So I wrote the three novels that I had in mind that I wanted to write. And they're all Vermont-centric. They're all based on legitimate Vermont history.

[00:15:49] A lot of interesting history in this state, including history having to do with ghosts and monsters and spiritualism and things like that. So there was just—it's just a wealth of things to write about that, to me, are fascinating. And so I've been sort of locked in Vermont. All my novels—I think I've written five novels and a book of short stories. They all take place in Vermont.

[00:16:18] My mission, the mission that I was feeling was that I wanted to create this Vermont Gothic. I didn't know if I'd be able to keep it going beyond those original three books. But what happened was I kept learning more and more about the state and its eccentric past.

[00:16:39] So at some point, I just decided to put the novels aside and just collect the state's stories. No one—oddly, in all the time this state has existed, it was the 14th state to join the Union. In all that time, nobody had bothered to collect the state's weird tales. So I've got—I started doing that because somebody had to do it.

[00:17:08] And I'm talking about ghost stories and stories about murderers and lost treasures and monsters and eccentrics and, you know, all the sorts of things that the legitimate history books might not pay attention to. You've in essence become the gatekeeper of the stories of weird and macabre for Vermont. Sort of, yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm sort of known locally for doing that. Yeah, yeah.

[00:17:37] And I got very popular around Halloween. The Gore—was it your first novel then? No. The sequence was—I wrote Lake Monsters first, but that wasn't published first. I wrote Shadow Child second, and that was published. So that was my first book in terms of being published. See, writers have two first books. The first one they write, and the first one they— They get published.

[00:18:06] So those two, Lake Monsters and Shadow Child were the first two. And then The Gore was number three. And I've written two others. One is called Guardian Angels. And the other is called Deus Ex, The Reality Conspiracy. And I'm told that that is not well titled because it makes this sound like a science fiction book.

[00:18:35] And it's not really a science fiction book at all. But I don't know. But that—anyway, those are my—those are my five novels. And they're out there somewhere in the— Well, and again, one of those things where we're all learning about what the orphan books are, the publishing—some publishers going out of business. Some of your books, if they're orphans. Again, people like Red Hawk, publishing companies like Red Hawk might come around and swoop it up.

[00:19:02] So we'll get back to that conversation about what we do next with those other orphaned books. But I do have a question to ask you in terms of speaking of orphaned books and speaking of publishing. What would you say the current state of publishing is as we're in the 21st century? How have you seen it change since your Warner Books days? We'll put it that way. Well, you know, that's fun to talk about.

[00:19:32] And we could go on forever about that. I mean, I think it's in a terrible state of chaos. And it's kind of like the economic situation in this country. There are just kind of a few people that are being read by everybody. And then there's lots and lots of people who are falling into these niche interest categories. And lots of little publishers and a lot of people publishing their own stuff.

[00:20:01] There's chaos in the bookstore. If you can find a bookstore, they're closing down like crazy around here. You know, when I first entered the world of publishing was in the late 1980s. And people were saying then, this is the worst year of publishing ever. And that's been true every year since then. It just gets worse and worse and worse.

[00:20:30] And I wasn't a good fit with these mega publishers. Warner Books was not a pleasant experience. But they were a big publisher for their time. Arguably, they were probably the biggest in the world at that time. And, you know, one feels kind of confident about being with such a big publisher. But, you know, they don't treat writers well. They didn't treat writers well.

[00:20:56] There wasn't that sort of intimate relationship with the editor that you want. You know, I live in the town here in Vermont, Windsor, Vermont, which is really where the birthplace of Vermont. It was where Vermont was founded. And one of the little known facts about this town is it's where Maxwell Perkins lived. Famous editor. A name that will ring a bell. Oh, yeah.

[00:21:25] Especially for North Carolinians. So, you know, and his house is very near my house. Not that he's alive or anything, but I do summon him from time to time. He's probably, you know, he's certainly one of the most famous editors ever. So there's that literary tradition here in Windsor. And I like to remind myself that he's always looking over my shoulder.

[00:21:52] So I want to be careful with what I write and what I say. And, you know, respect the tradition of writing and how important it is. And respect the position between the writer and the editor. The editors are, well, we're in a partnership with editors. The writer and the editor both want the same thing.

[00:22:21] They both want the best book possible. But when I was working with these huge publishers, there wasn't that much interaction between me and the editor. You know, I might get a couple of phone calls or a page of things that they'd like to see me change. But they also took a lot of independent action. They'd change the titles of my books without my permission. I hated that.

[00:22:48] They would put covers, cover art that had nothing to do with the story. I hated that. And they wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't ask, they wouldn't give me cover approval or ask me what I'd like to see on the cover. Now, working with you, for example, you asked me, what would you like to see on the cover? So I actually had a little input into the process. And I love that.

[00:23:14] To me, I'm not sure that really answers your question about how publishing has changed. But that's kind of how it's changed for me. I've been working with smaller publishers for a while. Well, I think the biggest publishers I have right now are Globe Pequot, which is kind of a middle-sized publisher, and Houghton Mifflin. I have a book with Houghton Mifflin right now. Oh, okay. Those are sizable, both of them, yeah.

[00:23:44] But I was going to say, I've been working on these books about Vermont history and folklore. And nobody wants those. No publisher wants those. I mean, if everybody in Vermont bought one of those books, it still wouldn't be a bestseller. You know what I mean? I was reading about Robert Louis Stevenson last night.

[00:24:04] And when his book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came out, he sold 40,000 copies. That was a bestseller in his day. I'm sure it was. Now, you know, a big publisher like Warner Books wouldn't even be interested in that. Too few books. Yeah. 1,000 books.

[00:24:28] We always talk about how, you know, people complained when the music industry changed and publishing was right behind it. In terms of looking for marketability, figuring out what the audience wants, but actually dictating what the audience will get. Yeah. And there's a big difference there. And for some of the small and middle-sized publishers, of which we're one of the smaller ones, we actually enjoy the creative process of collaborating.

[00:24:59] And it's a little trickier to get the audience. But when we do get the audience to pick up on what we're putting out, it's a little bit more magic. Because we didn't dictate, hey, this is the cover, this is the name. And we made all these tweaks because this is what you're going to eat. Just like, you know, fill in the blank, fast food burger service. It's like, no, we want something different, unique, something that a reader can really kind of get their teeth into and be surprised.

[00:25:28] And it's not cookie cutter. And it's not the flavor of the month author. We're just looking for good books, Joe. So that's our perspective on it. And we actually do enjoy the input of authors with covers and titles. We might go back and forth a little bit. But, again, that's the fun part, collaborating and, you know, being creative with one another. Yeah. And that's fun.

[00:25:53] I mean, in a book, you know, a writer can't feel that he or she is finished with his or her book when I type the end. I mean, there's a lot that has to happen after that. And that can be a pleasant journey or not such a pleasant journey. And I think there are a lot of, you know, I think there are a lot of world-class books that never find a publisher. I hear that all the time.

[00:26:22] You know, I'm in acquisition, so I tend to get the manuscripts. There was one I got recently from a poet in Colorado. I read it at 11 o'clock at night on a Tuesday. I had no business reading anything work-related at 10 or 11 at night. But I did. And, boy, did it just catch me immediately. I read a few more pages. I shot it off to her girlfriend. It got her attention.

[00:26:47] And I think it was later that night, maybe 12 or 1 in the morning, I wrote him and said, we'd like to do this. And he called me the very next morning, like at 8 or 9 in the morning, to say, why are you doing my book? Well, first of all, you asked me to. I know I respond a little quicker sometimes than others. I get that. So if you're out there and it's taken me two or three months, sorry. But with this particular poetry collection, it was accessible.

[00:27:16] It was meaningful. It wasn't just me. I sent it to another person who agreed and thanked the author the next day. I told him, well, it's good. It resonated. It's what you would want in poetry. It's also accessible to people that might not even like poetry. This is good. This guy's in his mid-60s. He's been trying to publish for 20 years. He asked me why we're publishing it because no one else has responded to an email, let alone had interest in publishing him.

[00:27:45] So he was eternally grateful. And to your point, there's a lot of good books out there that we will never see the light of. That's exactly what you're talking about. And I can attest to that's what Red Hawk is kind of about. We realize that there are some voices that don't get heard. And if we can do anything to unearth those hidden gems, we try to. In your case, we're reviving the dead.

[00:28:12] Yeah, you're inviting an avalanche, though, I think. I think when word's out on Red Hawk, you'll see a lot of submissions. Well, that's happening. Hey, there's another question I wanted to talk to you about just because I know you have an instructor background. Would you mind sharing what some of the best practices or advice that you give aspiring writers? Some of your better habits? Some of your challenges?

[00:28:42] Because I know that a lot of our students that take creative writing courses listen to our pods. So I'm kind of curious what advice you would give. I really only have one piece of advice that I feel is useful and worth sharing. And as I would tell my students, I had students and they all wanted to write novels. And I would just say, look, if you start something, finish it.

[00:29:09] You may think that you can't finish it, but do it anyway. If you start it, finish it. Beyond that, I have no advice. People will find their own way. We learn a lot about writing from reading. And we don't realize that we're learning it. All a writing instructor can do is kind of guide the person.

[00:29:37] You can't teach anybody to write. But what you can do is teach them how not to write. And, you know, I find a lot of beginning writers blunder into the same areas. And that's kind of what I had a certain number of things that I wanted to really hammer home in my writing classes.

[00:30:05] And one of them was point of view. Simply that. I mean, it seems so obvious, but people mess it up horribly. But yeah, I don't think there's any like one bit of advice that's going to be useful all the time for everyone. You can work with writers and give little pieces of advice.

[00:30:26] But I think finishing things is really important because so many people start writing a novel, say, and they suddenly realize how much work it is. And they allow themselves to get distracted and they just add another unfinished manuscript to their bottom drawer of their desk. I mean, it's just it's so easy not to write.

[00:30:55] Sort of writing sort of like what Mark Twain said about smoking. You know, it's easy to it's easy to quit. I've done it lots of times. You got to not quit. And even if the book ends up in the bottom drawer, you finished it and you have a body of work to work on. And then the joy comes, at least it did for me and continues to it. The joy comes in revision.

[00:31:23] I just heard from one of a gentleman who we've been in touch maybe for maybe six to nine months. And his initial submission wasn't quite ready. And I encouraged him to get a coach or being in a writer's group where you compare review, get an editor. And he wrote me the other day to say it's fine. It's finished. I've been to about 30 drafts. And he was not joking. But you know what? That's something people don't understand.

[00:31:50] They think just because the book is that first initial manuscript is done, they've written a book. And I just kind of sit back and smile. We'll find out. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much fun to hear from a writer who's taken one of my classes and they've published a book or something. Who knows what evils I've loosed upon the world?

[00:32:18] Hey, by the way, you are in Vermont and we are in chilly North Carolina. It's the end of January 2025. Who knows when people will listen to this, but it's very cold out. Are you drinking coffee right now? No, it's water. It's water. Okay. Well, just so that you know, folks out there, I'm drinking a nice hot cup of coffee. And if you happen to live in the Hickory area, yes, this is a shameless plug for our sponsor.

[00:32:46] We encourage you to go to Tasteful Beans Coffee because not only do they have the best coffee in Western North Carolina, but they also sell books. Lots of poetry written by owner slash poet Scott Owens. But also amazing food. They also sell other Red Hawk publication books. So we are a fan of Tasteful Beans. We're appreciative of their sponsorship and we encourage everyone to go there.

[00:33:13] Joseph, when you come to Hickory, you're going to go to Tasteful Beans, right? I sure am. Yeah, I'm planning on bringing some books. That's right. There you go. We'll do a book signing at Tasteful Beans. That'll be fun. Okay. You know what? This is the end of this pod. I can't thank you enough, Joseph. It's always a pleasure to chat with you because I could chat with you forever. But I do want to thank you for your time.

[00:33:40] And as we end things, I want to remind people to please like, share, and subscribe to our podcast. You'll find this on any podcast platform. You'll also hear the audio version on YouTube for those folks who don't really want to go to podcast platforms. And as we end, I do want to ask you one final thing, Joseph. Can you mention to the people in podcast land the name of our podcast? It's unique. It's Red Pub Pub.

[00:34:09] Can I say it? Can you say the name of our podcast, Joe? Red Pub Pod. Oh, my gosh. You did it like a pro. Usually people stumble and we make fun of you. But you did it perfectly. Thank you so much. Not at all. Thank you. I've enjoyed this. And on behalf of Red Pub Pod, myself, Patty Thompson, and in addition to Robert Kneipp, our publisher, and our fearless leader, Richard Eller, who will be putting this together.

[00:34:36] Thank you very much for joining us on yet another exciting podcast of Red Pub Pod. This is Red Pub Pod. Red Pub Pod. A podcast. Red Pub Pod. From Red Hawk Publications. Red Pub Pod. Red Pub Pod. Can I say that?