First Draft to Published

The subtle and unpredictable plot twists within the collection will compel a reader to move eagerly from story to story. As some stories, like “Sentiments of Blue,” rely on irony, others, like, “The Conversion,” juxtapose the typical with the unexpected.   The book is an easy read. The most contemplative reader will finish the work in no more than two days.   The collection covers a wide range of settings, from a factory, to a church, to a train ride, to a baseball park. The author takes the reader on an eclectic joy ride through time, through conflicts and through the world of his upbringing. The five reflective poems will evoke raw emotion from the readers, from the heart numbing, “The Careers of My Mother,” to the comical back seat drive with the zany father in, “Drives with Dad.”   An assortment of characters, from Little Rickey, to the Animal, to the flame throwing pitcher and head hunter named Chi-Chi Gomez, will fill your imagination with their antics and mor...

At Writing Daze, on Wednesdays we ask visiting authors to give us their favorite quote and what it means to them. Garasamao Maccagnone picked this quote from Joyce Carol Oates and why it appeal to him. We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language. Joyce Carol Oates Being Sicilian, this quote appeals to me. We’ll wait two decades, quietly, just waiting to get even with someone who has hurt or discredited our family. In my novel, St. John of the Midfield, this sense of loyalty to blood was explored through the narrator’s conflicting lifestyle between legitimate and illegitimate worlds. Mario Santini desperately wants to be good. He wants to ensure that his wife, son, and himself all have an opportunity to live in the after world; to have a room in heaven like his mother always dreams of. Yet, he loves his father, who, although is corrupt, raised Mario pretty much on his own and has loved and protected him as much as any father. Though Mario finds his father’s life...