Dwight Holing’s contemporary western

thriller series starring Nick Drake owe their success to their readers, who are

vocal in clamoring for the next book . . .

Hi there. I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler and today

Dwight explains how he sees writing as a collaboration and agrees with feted

author John Cheever who once said "I can't write without a reader. It's

precisely like a kiss. You can't do it alone. "

We are delighted also to be offering a Nick Drake Giveaway - two E-book copies of The Sorrow Hand, the first book, in the Nick Drake series  - to two lucky readers. Details of how to enter the draw can be found on the website, The Joys of Binge Reading.com or on Facebook Binge Reading page. Offer closes April 4 so enter the draw now.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

The importance of a positive mindsetGetting to know your lead characters wellDwight's passion for Oregon's mountain desertsReclaiming humanity after a war with no rulesThe family connection to Raymond ChandlerJack McCoul - urban hustler and ex-con

Where to find Dwight Holing: 

Website: http://dwightholing.com/

Facebook: @dwight.holing

 Twitter: @Dwightholing

What

follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for

word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

 But

now here's Dwight. Hi there, Dwight, and welcome to the show. It's great to

have you with us.

Dwight Holing: Well. Thank you, Jenny, and it's really a pleasure to be here and

I'm glad to be on your podcast.  I also

want to thank everyone listening in, because it's really readers that have

gotten to me to transition from writing nonfiction to fiction. And what I

always like to tell readers is one thing, and that is to quote the great

American novels, John Cheever, I can't write without a reader. It's precisely

like a kiss. You can't do it alone.

Dwight Holing - author of contemporary western and urban thrillers

Jenny Wheeler: Oh, that's just wonderful actually. And this podcast - we try and

target it for readers, rather than other writers. When I looked at the idea of

doing a podcast, I thought there were quite a lot of podcasts there for other

writers, but I couldn't see so many that were really for readers.

So that's really appropriate and it's a

good place to start because. we know that we were a very successful nonfiction

writer doing travel and nature books, but how did you get to that switched to

fiction? Was it the readers who helped you to make that change?

Dwight Holing: Well, the change really wasn't an "aha" moment for me when I decided to close the book on nonfiction and open a new one, writing crime fiction novels. I see writing as a journey and I'd always been moving in the direction of fiction as a nonfiction writer.

Moving from magazines to novels

I wrote mostly for magazines rather than newspapers, and that allowed me to exercise more voice and use experiential viewpoint.

But at the same time as writing nonfiction,

I was also writing personal essays and short stories based on those experiences

and observations and people or characters I met along the way. Some of those

made their way into print and literary journals and the like and even won an

award or two. Those essays and short stories, in fact, a small literary

publishing house in Georgia, called Snake Nation Press, actually published them

all in a collection.

That was my first bent into fiction, a

publication. And then when I was writing nonfiction books on nature travel, I

was also working on a novel. I think most writers are doing that. And in my

case, I was writing more than one at a time.

Discovering indie publishing

And this was before the advent of indie

publishing, when the only way to get a novel published was to get an agent and

have that agent shop your work for you. I did that. I landed at a top New York

agent and I thought the bestseller list was right around the corner for

me.