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| ROBERT MAYER'S NO-NONSENSE OLDE SWEET HOME PAGE
WRITING WORKSHOP: My next writing workshop will begin May 16, and run through the end of June. It will include seven three-hour weekly sessions, on Tuesday afternoons. The fee is $285 plus tax. Student scholarships are available.
The workshop meets from 2-5 PM, in a studio on W. San Mateo. It consists
of 4 to 6 students. Students read from their own work each
week. Some read from novels or memoirs they have in progress. Others
write, at home, five-page sketches on subjects suggested by me. Enough
copies are brought in so that each person can follow along while the
author reads. The group then offers critiques -- what they like about
the pieces, and suggestions for improvements.
The sessions
are informal. New friendships often rise out of them. About two thirds
of the students choose to continue on to the next workshop, unless they
are traveling. Some take a break, then return two months later. I began
leading the workshops in March, 2011. The first completed manuscript -- a
powerful memoir -- recently was accepted by a prestigious New York
agent, and is now being circulated to publishers. For samples of
workshop work, go to
www.writers-workshop.net
For info or to
enroll, call me at 505-438-0012.
Professional editing of manuscripts is also available.
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I
MY NEW NOVEL:
My 12th book -- and tenth novel -- was published September 13. Called
"The Origin of Sorrow," it is a 578-page historical novel, set in a
Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt in the 1770s. Longtime New York Times
columnist Robert Lipsyte has called it "a masterpiece." Peggy Frank, the
owner of Book Mountain, says, "It is the best book I have ever read."
The book is available in Santa Fe at Garcia Street
books and Book Mountain. Amazon has it
for sale as a trade paperback for $19.99, and as an e-book for $9.99.
Barnes and Noble has it for the Nook. For more about the book, and how it came about, see page 4 of this site.
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OTHER BOOK NEWS: My previous novel "Dance Macabre,"
a mystery set in New Orleans, was published in June. The featured
characters are a young ballet dancer, a crack newsman, and Voodoo Queen
Marie Laveau. It is available in trade paperback online and through
stores for $12.99. The e-book can be downloaded for only $2.99. (See
page 2) Also now available are new editions of five of my
novels from the 1980s, which have long been out of print. They are "Midge and Decker," "The Execution," "Sweet Salt," "The Search," and "The Grace of Shortstops."
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Praise for the Books of Robert Mayer
"A masterpiece."-- Robert Lipsyte
“Fascinating.” -- John Grisham
“Gripping.” -- Janet Malcolm, The New York Times
“He writes like an angel.” -- Newsday
“Exemplary.” -- Village Voice
“Pure, undiluted magic.” -- Washington Post
“Quiet brilliance.” -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Strangely moving.” -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Genuinely compelling storytelling.” -- Chicago Tribune
“Wonderfully human.” -- Dallas News
“The poet’s touch.” -- Detroit News
“A blend of the funny and the poignant.” -- St. Louis Post Dispatch
“Absorbing.” -- Sunday Oklahoman
“Ranks with the best.” -- Santa Fe Reporter
“Topnotch.” -- People Magazine "Bold and original." -- Rain Taxi Review of Books Most books discussed in these
pages are available, new or used,
at www.amazon.com or www.bn.com | |
| _______________________________
Vic Ziegel -- July 23, 2010
In Memorium
_______________________________
NEWS:
A review of Sorrow appears in the February issue of The Link (Albq). Excerpts:
The Origin of Sorrow, by Robert Mayer
“Brilliantly written . . . Mr. Mayer has created an engaging, sometimes hilarious, often maddening cast of characters. . .[He] has a gift for writing dialogue. Lest readers think life in the Judengasse was unrelentingly grim, the author provides hilarious accounts of arguments between neighbors . . . [His] descriptions of ghetto life, both physical and mental, are vividly evocative. Readers can literally smell the summer stench of the open sewer ditch that bisected the main street of the Judengasse, can feel the wet suffocation of madness as it creeps over women who have no means of escaping their confines for even a moment’s privacy or respite. . . It requires little imagination to discern the roots of the Holocaust in the Germany of the last days of the Holy Roman Empire.”
--Tori Lee, the New Mexico Jewish Link, Feb., 2012
The First Review of my offbeat novel The Ferret's Tale has
appeared in the Rain Taxi Review of Books,(winter, 2012) a national literary
quarterly. The reviewer said the novel is "bold and original," and
concluded: "If you're ready to catch anything a book can throw at you,
dive in."
Amazon has the book in trade paper or electronic form.
(The rest of this column is for doodling.)
| | Biography
Born in the Bronx, N.Y., Robert Mayer attended the City College of NY, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. After a brief stint at the Washington Post, he joined the staff of Newsday. He spent ten years there, six as a reporter and four as the paper’s New York City columnist.
In 1968 he won the National Headliner Award as the best feature columnist in the country. In 1969 he won the Mike Berger Award for the year’s best writing about New York City. In 1971 he received the Mike Berger Award again, becoming the first person to win it twice.
He then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to write books and articles. Mayer is the author of twelve books -- ten novels and two works of non-fiction. Eight of the books have been reissued in new editions during the past few years. They include "Superfolks," which (for better or worse) altered the treatment of superheroes in comics and movies forever; "Notes of a Baseball Dreamer," a memoir about growing up as a wannabe major leaguer in the city; and "The Dreams of Ada," the true story of two men spending life in prison for a murder they did not commit.
Between writing books Mayer served six years as managing editor and then editor of The Santa Fe Reporter, an alternative weekly. His journalism
has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Newsweek, GQ, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Metropolitan Home, Southwest Art, Rocky Mountain Magazine, New Mexico Magazine, the Santa Fean and numerous other publications.
He has worked with the same literary agent, Philip Spitzer, for 37 years. Philip is the agent for Michael Connolly, James Lee Burke, Andre Dubus III and many others.
Mayer lives in New Mexico with his wife, La Donna, who is a weaver of tapestries, and their dog, a camel's hair colored, people-loving pit bull. La Donna can be reached at 505-231-5904. Her tapestries can be seen by appointment.
Their daughter, Amara Cocilovo Nash, is Public Program Coordinator at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton.
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