Ladies and gentlemen, today I have the immense pleasure to host Stephen Jared.
<Spotlights flood the scene, the audience is in standing ovation, and the roar is deafening.>
I know, I know. I warned some of you that we would have had a special guest, but you have to agree with me: I floored you!
<cheers, twists and shouts from ladies and girls and a thundering long applause. Smiling, Stephen and I take place on our confy chairs on stage.>
Ok people, we’re ready, if you are. Let me be honest, I’m not great with names, I’m much better with remembering faces. When we had the first contact—through your wife Tracy, Stephen—a bell rang in my head but I wasn’t sure. It is only after I searched online and SAW you that my jaw dropped. It was THAT Stephen Jared.
People, I saw Stephen—as I’m sure many of you did, too—perform in many movies, some recent like “He’s Just Not That Into You
Well, I’m not revealing a secret here: we will see Stephen again on the large screens in two upcoming movies—completed in 2014, and yet to be released—”Salvation” and “Fort Bliss”.
Stephen is from Cincinnati. In addition to acting in feature films, television series, and commercials for both radio and television, he is also an author whose writings, including articles and interviews, have appeared in various publications.
In 2010, he self-published an adventure novel titled Jack and the Jungle Lion
His second novel, Ten-A-Week Steale
To know more of Stephen’s acting career, hop to IMDb: Stephen Jared – Biography – IMDb.
Friends, let me welcome again, here with us, Stephen Jared!
<clapping decibels records are shattered, smiling faces everywhere in the audience>
So, Stephen, for the sake of our audience, how did we meet? On the Internet, on the high seas—you get the meaning—what miracle connected the two of us?
Hi Massimo, and hello everyone.
<Stephen waves to the audience, and they go crazy again. We smile.>
My wife Tracy introduced us. She found you on the Internet.
Oh my goodness. Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard it! Tracy, Stephen’s wife, found ME on the internet. Isn’t internet fabulous? By the way, Tracy is a talented artist, too, and would deserve to share the stage with us.
<The spotlight beams on Stacy who sits in the first row. We smile and the audience go wild once more. I bow and send her a mute ‘thank you’>
An obvious dream for a writer, especially a sf writer like me, is to land a contract in Hollywood, or have the stories become an HBO series, so I take it as a sign of destiny that Hollywood, instead, came to me through these two beautiful people.
<the audience gratifies us with the Niagara Falls equivalent of a rolling applause>
Stephen, thank you for being with us today. You have a new book that’s just being released, The Brutal Illusion
Yes, it’s a dark story set in 1936 Hollywood. A young woman struggles to fulfill a dream. She meets a man with connections, becomes overjoyed, and soon feels indebted when she lands a studio contract. At the studio, a young writer takes a shine to her; however, rumors circulate that the man who got her the contract is a mobster. Unbeknownst even to her, the rumors are true, and her dream soon becomes a nightmare. I can’t say more without ruining surprises. I’ve written a lot about old Hollywood. I know it well. It’s a suspense thriller.
Wow, it sure sounds like one, Stephen. Does Hollywood inspire you a lot?
I’ve always been hugely inspired by movies, and one of the inspirations behind this book was the HBO mini-series remake of Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet. I thought that was extraordinary.
I believe everyone in the audience agrees with you, right folks?
<cheers and applauses. There’s a good mood tonight.>
Is there anything special potential readers should know about Brutal Illusion?
The Brutal Illusion is not for kids. I’ve written other novels – adventure stories – that could be great for kids, and for anyone who has read them or knows about them, they should understand that this one’s different.
Point well taken, and surely noted by those who like a strong punch in their thrillers. You must have plenty of stories within you, coming from your career as an actor. Do you still need to do research for your novels?
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for twenty-five years, and I’ve been fascinated by its history well before that. Yet I continue to read and research. I’d like readers to get to know the city as it was from my books.
So it would be like traveling back in time through your books, and the thirties are a fascinating period for everyone. How much impact does your childhood have on your writing?
It’s a somewhat ridiculous simplification, but I tend to think of my adventure stories as reflecting the child in me, and the noir stories as reflecting the adult.
Not at all, Stephen, not at all. I believe it must be valid for an actor as well, but if a writer forgets the child in him and who widens his eyes in amazement at everything, I can’t fathom how s/he could produce stories that are gripping and breathtaking. It’s a blessing when we can nurture both ‘self’ when growing up.
How many books have you written, and which one is your absolute favorite?
The Brutal Illusion is my fourth. I wouldn’t say any one is a favorite but I think this one is the most unique, the most personal. It’s hard-hitting, I think, solid melodrama.
I see people nodding in the audience, I think you’re growing your readership right now, right here, Stephen. Writing means exposing oneself to praise and to criticisms. How do you react to a bad review of one of your books?
I dump gasoline on my computer and set it on fire. After that, I’m fine.
<I look at Tracy in the audience and she nods.>
Burn baby, burn! It’s a “refreshing” vision 
How many computers have you bought so far?<I raise my hand> No, I’m joking; no need to answer that but I hope we’re talking ’bout those cheap plastic computer brands, here.
<laughters from the audience>
What are the most important attributes to remaining sane as a writer?
Writing is an ego-driven endeavor. You’re asking people to invest hours into being an audience for you alone. It’s that ego that gets writers into trouble. You expect rewards that are beyond reality.
There’s truth in what you say, and then it makes for some ill-fated computer early mortality statistics. I know, I know… But we keep smashing words on screen and paper because of those readers who give us a boost, instead.
I re-read—as a reminder—this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson –
“’Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.”
But of course, the book needs to be well written, first. What is your favorite genre to read?
I think there’s nothing better than an adventure story well told. They’re hard to do though. So many elements have to be balanced just right. Authors don’t write them today much because what was once exotic is not exotic today. Today you have more survival stories sold as adventures, or mysteries surrounding some treasure sold as adventure, but the ones I like best are the ones that have a little of everything – romance, villains, far away lands, suspense, humor – something like Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.
<clapping, cheers, and nodding from the audience>
I agree with you completely. Today it seems everyone tries to limit the risk and go for the simplest possible recipe that sells. It is—at times—demoralizing. A well told story has to have everything, life doesn’t make a selection of a few ‘selling’ traits; there’s romance, fear, unknowns, suspense, and laughters even in the direst situation. It’s a rare thing to find that in today’s books.
You have a long career, and not just as a writer. What do you consider to be your biggest failure?
Having once believed art was everything.
Ouch, I sense a moment of epiphany one day must have happened to you. Well, Hollywood must teach this lesson to everyone, sooner or later…
As an artist, though, do you think art matters, or better, more specifically, do you think what you do matters? I don’t think what I do matters. But that’s not to imply that the work of others doesn’t matter. The work by some artists is very important. But I’m not a significant artist. My works are escapist, derivative, but with a very personal touch. My books are good, I believe, but they’re not significant. I’m not writing important literature.
Oh I would disagree with that. Every literature is important.
<the audience agrees and a wave of applause rolls in>
Allow me to cite Marcel Proust:
“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.”
Writers bring themselves in a book, and there will be things that resonate for one reader and not for another. The book is the same, the chords it will strike on each reader are different, and readers will resonate—or not—with their own special ‘self.’
Readers feel and receive different things from the same book. People are different. Every book, every writer is either loved, hated, and everything in between. And yet, it is the same book, with the same words. Sometimes, we are not ready for the messages and the theme exposed and treated in a book, and we need different experiences in our life to appreciate them, or discover they were no more for us: we have changed.
In any case, even when we don’t like a book, those words will stay with us, and if we keep mind and heart open, we always have a chance to grow. Sorry for the digression, folks.
Stephen, you write, you entertain people, you communicate with readers, and this is always important.
<the audience stands up and the cheers are all for Stephen>
What are you planning on writing in the near future?
Another crime fiction, this one set in the California desert, 1950s.
Ahh, so time advances Last question, Stephen, before we leave the stage. What was the greatest thing you learned at school?
That sometimes life is terribly boring and you just have to accept it.
And that’s why—maybe—every literature is important. Readers evade to other times and other places, we chaperon them away from the bore and the chore that life, sometimes, is.
Ladies and gentlemen… Stephen Jared!
<standing ovation as Stephen and I shake hands. Then, Stephen is all for the loving audience.>
Stephen Bibliography:
Please, visit Stephen also at his personal website, and his Amazon Author’s page.
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