Literary Birthday – 19 February – Ross Thomas
Ross Thomas was born 19 February 1926, and died 18 December 1995.
Ross Thomas On Writing His First Novel
‘Let’s say that you have written your first novel and have had it nicely typed. Now what do you do with it? Do you try to secure the services of an agent? Do you shyly ask someone to read it–other than your perspicacious typist? Or do you simply bundle it off to Harper’s or Knopf and hope for the best?
I didn’t have the slightest idea of what to do. So I called a friend of mine who had published a novel that had sunk almost immediately from sight. Still, he was the only novelist I knew. So I informed him, rather diffidently, that I, too, had written a novel and now needed advice and counsel. In other words, what now?
I still remember the long silence over the phone. Then the deep sigh. And then the advice: “Well, first,” he said, “you get yourself some brown paper and some string, wrap it all up, and mail it to William Morrow and Company. And then you might write a letter to let them know it’s coming.
And that’s what I did. A month later I received a post card acknowledging that William Morrow and Company had indeed received my MS–an abbreviation that I interpreted to mean masterpiece.’ (Spywrite.com)
Ross Thomas was an American author of crime fiction. He wrote witty thrillers that exposed the mechanisms of professional politics. Stephen King called him “the Jane Austen of political espionage”. Thomas’s debut novel, The Cold War Swap introduced his characters McCorkle and Padillo, and won a 1967 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Briarpatch won the 1985 Edgar for Best Novel. He was the winner of the inaugural Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award. He penned over 25 critically acclaimed novels. He also wrote under the name Oliver Bleeck.
Source for image: Mysterious Press
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