Today I
have a very special guest to interview. His nonfiction anthology is just right
for holiday reading.
Mark Wright, a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater Arts
and a 40 year veteran of the television and video industry, is owner and
principal of Sangamon House, providing digital production services like
electronic publishing, video production and live streaming to a variety of
clients. From 1984 to 1989, he was the principle
producer/director for Zenger/Miller, Inc., an international management training
firm specializing in communication skills videos, overseeing production in
numerous North American locales, Germany, England, and Italy. He was producer and creative director for Nate
Thurmond's Gold Medal Roasts, a Special Olympics fundraiser that paid
tribute to such Bay Area celebrities as Rick Barry, Willie Brown and Ronnie
Lott, and broadcast on KTVU and KPIX. In
1992, he wrote, produced and directed Esperanza Del Valle, a six part television soap opera
aimed at high school youths with drug and alcohol abuse prevention messages
that aired on PBS. From 1985 to 1998,
Mark was the designer and coordinator of the UC Santa Cruz Extension Video Arts
certificate program.
He produced,
directed and edited The Spirit of Scrooge, a half hour documentary about
Notre Dame de Namur University’s production of A Christmas Carol, The Musical
which played on Channel 9 PBS in December of 2012. Mark is now trying to raise money to shoot a
documentary about America’s first Olympic team handball team called The Boys of ’72.
Among numerous awards, Mark won 3 1998 International Gold Cindy awards
and the Communicator Awards Crystal Award of Excellence for The Best Place,
a program that documented the value of a diverse workforce for Hewlett-Packard
Company.
Question:
What is the title and genre of your book?
Why did you select them?
Answer: Miracles of Kindness. We had a hard time classifying this book but
we generally list it as “Inspirational” because we hope that the stories inside
provide inspiration to lead a kinder life.
Question: What inspired this book? How did it come
about?
Answer: Miracles of Kindness
started out as a joint reclamation project for my mother and me in early 2009. Ann Wright, my mother, was age 84. She left an organization that had been the
center of her life and had lots of time on her hands. At 58, I was about 8 months sober and trying
to come to grips with life without alcohol.
Neither of us were in a good place so we decided one night after dinner
together to pursue an idea that had been in the back of my mind for years, a
collection of real stories for a book about people doing kind things for
others. We envisioned a book of stories
that we would collect using the Internet and CraigsList as a source, later to
be re-written in our own style and presented as a series of chapters. The idea was to highlight the little acts of kindness
that occur every day, around the world, “small” miracles as we call them, that
may not have meant much at the time to the giver of the act but that meant
everything to the recipient.
And so we
set out to write and hopefully publish the work. We tried the traditional means at first, finding
an agent and letting them search for a likely publisher. We sent out query letters and got a few
encouraging responses but it seemed to most of them that the market had already
addressed that need with the legendary series of books, “Chicken Soup for the
Soul”. Plus, no one knew Mom and me, a
fact that seems now the most relevant.
We have come to learn that getting one’s book in print is not about the
publisher bringing the work to the audience, it’s about the authors bringing
the audience to the work. Ultimately, we
struck out with traditional publishers.
We then
decided to publish the book on our own.
After many fits and starts, collecting stories and getting to know our
story contributors very well, we were able to use Apple iBooks Author as our
creative platform to get things started.
With my knowledge of the Apple and Adobe authoring and editing platforms
(from my work as a video producer/director/editor), we presented stories in a
professional, graphic style, with video interviews added for certain story
subjects. We made a big push in 2014 to
collect the best stories we could find until we had enough subject matter to
publish Miracles of Kindness for the iBooks platform in December of
2014. Later, after much work to learn
the ins and outs of other electronic platforms, we published the book for the
Kindle and Nook markets in July, 2015.
Question: Can you tell us about some of your other
work?
Answer: This is our first work. Mom (Ann), is a long retired kindergarten
teacher. I am a writer by trade, almost
all for video or film productions, although I have ghost written two books.
Question: What are you working on now?
Answer: Since Mom moved to
Provincetown, MA, to be closer to my sister, Robin, and her wife, Jan, we are
no longer collaborating on any projects.
I am currently working on a film project, a documentary called The
Boys of ’72, the story of America’s first Olympic team handball team, a
squad made up almost entirely of guys from the Army. I was a member of the 1980 team that didn’t
go to the Olympics because of the boycott and played with several of the guys
on the ’72 team. I am now considering
telling the story both as a film and as a book, since all the research I’m
doing will support both approaches.
Question: What
made you start writing?
Answer: I started writing in earnest in the early 70s in Los Angeles, trying
to break into sitcom writing. I had some
success and had an agent but eventually left LA in 1979 to move to Colorado
Springs to pursue team handball at the Olympic Training Center. My career in video production, primarily
corporate TV in the Silicon Valley, was centered on my skills as a writer, a
claim that not many other producer/directors could make. I have always written, in many forms, and find
the opportunities for expression now afforded all writers with new technologies
to be extremely exciting and personal rewarding.
Question: What advice would you offer to those who are
currently thinking of writing?
Answer: Just write. Whatever it takes,
do the work. Don’t just think about
it. And don’t be afraid of feedback.
Question: Where and when will readers be able to obtain
your book?
Answer:
Miracles
of Kindness is
available for iBooks at the Apple Store and for Kindle and Nook readers at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com respectively.
Comments
and questions from readers and fellow authors welcome here!
