"The Long Harbor Testament" by New Novelist Tom Minder

Interview conducted By Dawn Byrne

Tom Minder’s first novel “The Long Harbor Testament” was published and released this month through Black Rose Writing. He’s no newbie to fiction though with his short stories that can be found in: Tall Tales and Short Stories (mephitis mephitis), STORGY (At the Diner), Fiction on the Web (Murder in South Jersey), PILGRIM: A journal of Catholic experience (Self-Denial), CommuterLit (The Battling McManns), Spank The Carp (Squirrel!), Cat & Mouse Beach Nights Anthology (Burning for Rehoboth).

Tom answered questions about his book and other writings. The following are tidbits about this author of dry humor and his new and upcoming works.

Tell us about you and how writing fits in with your life. 

I’m retired and live in Turnersville, NJ with my wife, Paula. After years of promising to write my novel, I started in October 2012. After fifteen months for the first draft, nine more for beta reading and edit, and three years of querying agents and small presses, "The Long Harbor Testament" was accepted by Black Rose Writing. Since I retired, I spend fifteen to twenty hours a week on writing-related activity. This includes new writing, self-editing, submitting short stories, submitting my novel for reviews and planning the marketing steps. 

The characters drive your cozy mystery novel in a fun way. How did you come up with these colorful people and how they are connected to the murder?

Sixty-five years of attending weekly mass, Sunday breakfasts, thousands of diner dinners, and seeing criminal elements in Philly and South Jersey via TV, movies, and real life, created a roster of characters waiting to be stuffed into a book. Sit in a diner for an hour and tell me you can’t find characters stranger than fiction. 

Why is food included so much in your narratives? 

Food, and consumption thereof, is the great equalizer in our society. Where else do people gather together voluntarily and happily? Sporting events, maybe, but people go for the beer, nachos, questionable meat products, and overpriced pretzels as much as for the contest. Speaking of athletic feats, navigate through the crowd at halftime looking for a rest room and you’ll see moves unmatched on the field. All making room for the next beer and crab fries. 

Beside diners, your settings tend to be along bodies of water. Is there a reason for this? 

I hadn’t thought of that. I guess the seaside and ocean have calming effects on people while also posing dangers from rip currents, large people on inner tubes, unexpected waves which can cause wardrobe malfunctions, etc. 

I've read some of your short stories, and am excited about your next project. Can you talk about that?

I’m planning an anthology of the short stories, all featuring the same two main characters, with occasional cameos from the Jersey Devil. This married couple is a composite of myself and Paula, Dagwood and Blondie, and Nick and Nora Charles. I’m not sure about my next novel but am thinking along religious lines. 

Thank you for the interview, Tom. Looking forward to your collection of short stories, and more.

No Place to Pray by James Carpenter

"No Place to Pray is located at the creative nexus where Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, and Richard Pryor converge. Rarely do writers explore, much less depict with insight, irony, and comedy, the endless lower depths of American culture…" - Larry Bensky, Executive Producer, “Radio Proust;” and former contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Book Review

Two young men, one bi-racial and the other white, meet in an overnight lockup and begin their shared twenty-year downward spiral into alcoholism and homelessness. LeRoy and Harmon work together, drink together, brawl together, and as Harmon suffers from his final illness, they both bed Edna, a wealthy widow who, out of pity, curiosity, and loneliness, takes them into her vacation home by the river.

Through episodes rendered from shifting, multiple points of view, a series of flashbacks, and LeRoy’s adventure stories - this very smart but uneducated man’s attempts at fantasy writing - we learn of the people and tragedies that shaped their lives and those whose lives unravel along with theirs at the seams of race, class, and religion, and where no one ever quite tells the truth.

South Jersey Writers' Group member and author James Carpenter can be found on Twitter, and you can pre-order the book No Place to Play here.