Mark Malatesta Interview and Review with Peter E. Murphy
During this interview and Mark Malatesta review, Peter E. Murphy talks about his book, advice for writers, and experience working with Mark Malatesta, a former literary agent who helped Peter get a literary agent and traditional publisher. Peter is the author of the memoir, A Tipsy Fairy Tale: A Coming of Age Memoir of Alcohol and Redemption, published by McFarland Books.
Mark Malatesta Review by Peter E. Murphy
"I am beholden to Mark Malatesta, the amazing Agent Whisperer ... erm ... Agent Coach ... who tough-loved my manuscript from a jumble of anecdotes into a story people might want to read. and then schooled me on how to present it to the world. Many agents responded positively to the query Mark wrote for me—one of them expressed interest in less than 15 minutes."
Peter E. Murphy
Author of a dozen books and chapbooks of poetry and prose, including A Tipsy Fairy Tale: A Coming of Age Memoir of Alcohol and Redemption (McFarland Books)
The review of Mark Malatesta above is an edited excerpt. Click here to see the complete Mark Malatesta review, and here to see more Mark Malatesta reviews.
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Peter E. Murphy Interview
During this 60-minute interview with Mark Malatesta, author Peter Murphy talks about his book A Tipsy Fairy Tale (McFarland Books). Peter also shares his advice for other wrtiers, and he talks about his experience working with Mark Malatesta, a former literary agent turned author coach and consultant, who helped Peter get a literary agent.
Pt 1: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Mark Malatesta: Hi everyone, this is Mark Malatesta with TheBestsellingAuthor.com and Literary Agent Undercover, helping authors of all genres write, publish, and promote their work. I’m the writer who went undercover and became a literary agent, to find out how to get my own books published. A literary agent is someone who gets authors book deals with traditional publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, and McFarland Books.
Today I’m an author coach who's helped hundreds of authors get offers from literary agents and/or traditional publishers. My writers have gotten 6-figure book deals and advances with major publishers; been on the New York Times bestseller list; had their work picked up for TV, stage, and feature film (with companies like Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks, Lionsgate, and HBO Max); won countless awards; and had their work licensed in more than 40 countries; resulting in millions of books sold.
Now, let me introduce today’s special guest.
Pt 2: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: Peter Murphy is the author of a dozen books, and chapbooks, of poetry and prose, including A Tipsy Fairy Tale: A Coming of Age Memoir of Alcohol and Redemption, published by McFarland Books.
In the wake of his mother’s passing, Peter’s childhood is plunged into chaos. Suffering from neglect, abuse, and a lack of stability, he endures a series of hardships. Peter is kidnapped at gunpoint, breaks half a dozen ribs in a freak accident, and finds himself indebted to the Mafia. As a young teen he turns to painkillers and alcohol to cope, and develops an unexpected affinity for poetry...that eventually transforms his life.
Peter's memoir follows his journey deciphering the grief, shame, and loss that permeate his childhood. As a young man, he leaves the violence of New York for the bloodstained streets of Northern Ireland during the height of The Troubles. As Peter unravels the mystery surrounding his mother’s death, he reaches his lowest point living in a Welsh commune, with little hope of escaping the throes of substance abuse. Written with poetic insight, Peter's story is one of redemption, recovery, and finding faith in hardship.
Now I'll share Peter's bio with you...
Peter was born in Wales and grew up in New York where he managed a night club, operated heavy equipment, and drove a taxi. He's been awarded six creative writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, which might be a record, as well as multiple residencies at Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Millay Colony, and other artist retreats.
Peter’s work has appeared in hundreds of journals, anthologies, and textbooks including The Sun, The Shakespeare Quarterly, and The Michigan Quarterly Review. More than a dozen excerpts from A Tipsy Fairy Tale have been published in the United States and in Great Britain. One excerpt has been awarded the Arch Street Press First Chapter Memoir Prize, and another, The Wilt Prize for Creative Nonfiction.
For more than forty years, Peter has led hundreds of workshops for writers and teachers in the US and abroad. He's been a consultant to The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The New Jersey Councils for the Arts, and many others, including countless school districts from coast to coast. In addition, Peter has been an educational advisor to three PBS television programs produced by Bill Moyers.
Peter founded Murphy Writing at murphywriting.com to help writers develop their craft. He says he learned how to engage an audience by getting them to laugh at his stupid jokes...and that he learned how to keep them coming back by creating a challenging and supportive community where they could mature as writers. Peter's flagship program, The Annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway, grew from a weekend workshop with twenty participants in 1994 to one of the largest winter writing conferences, attracting more than 200 participants from around the world. In 2014, Stockton University acquired Murphy Writing, and hired Peter and his staff to run it.
To learn more about Peter, visit peteremurphy.com.
So welcome, Peter!
Pt 3: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Peter E. Murphy: Greetings, Mark, thanks for having me. I look forward to chatting with you.
Mark Malatesta: My pleasure, and likewise. Let's get into it. I know I told people quite a bit about your story, but I also bet there are a few other things you could share with us, to help us understand it more. And I know a lot of people listening, in addition to getting your advice on writing, publishing, and promoting a book, will want to buy your book. So, tell us a bit more.
Peter E. Murphy: Well, I didn't really want to write this book. I'm a poet. I like writing poetry because I can write about things and use my imagination a lot. And, frankly, I can lie about a lot. That's what imagination is. I can disguise, particularly, stuff about my life, disguise it with fairy tales, myths, and other stuff. But a friend convinced me I needed to write a memoir. I didn't want to. That was too public, because you can't use metaphor.
Writing a memoir, you have to tell the truth and what happened. It felt like I'd be changing my underwear in public. I didn't want other people to see me, and I didn't want to see myself doing that. Eventually, after a couple of years of her nagging me, I did it. I didn't know I had a story to tell. That was my biggest surprise, maybe, that I did have a story. That's how that happened.
Mark Malatesta: You have to tell the truth and confess everything in memoir, right?
Peter E. Murphy: Right, and I guess, when I grew up, I thought my childhood was normal. I thought I was just like everybody else. I remember one thing that happened. My mother had been dead for a couple of years. She died when I was seven, and my friend, his mother, died when we were about nine. There's poor Dickey. He doesn't have a mommy anymore.
It never occurred to me that I didn't have a mommy either. I was so unaware of what was going on. It was crazy that I was so unaware. It took me years before I realized maybe my childhood was different from that of other people. You mentioned in the introduction, in my bio, that I was kidnapped by gangs. That happened twice, once at gunpoint, and other stuff happened. That turns out to be a story. Wow.
Mark Malatesta: How does one get kidnapped twice?
Peter E. Murphy: Yes, I know. I was good at that. I grew up in four of the five boroughs of New York City. One of the areas I lived in was an area of Queens called Howard Beach, in the 50s and early 60s, and there were a lot of gangs at that point. I remember I would try to plan my route walking home from school, so I didn't run into either wild dogs or a gang. One time, I was unlucky. I don't remember what they were called, either the Boppers or the Fellow Chargers or some other witty name.
I was about seven or eight years old and they caught me, took me into the foundation of a house being built, and tortured me. I don't want to go into that specific detail here. They left me there for hours until somebody finally heard me screaming or crying or something. I don't remember. That was one time. A few years later, I was with a friend who bullied some little kids, and they ran home and got their big brothers. Their big brothers caught me, and marched me along the Belt Parkway near Kennedy airport, with a gun behind the back of my neck. I was lucky I survived that.
Pt 4: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: It's interesting. There are all types of memoirs. Some have dramatic, exciting, life-altering external events, and others are quieter. No less important stories, but a lot of internal things going on. Your book has a bit of both.
Peter E. Murphy: It does. A lot of the quiet stuff happened because, when I was a bit older... I mean, I was an awkward kid. I was born in Wales, as you mentioned. I grew up not really knowing anything about Wales. I knew I had a British accent, and I had a lisp. So, I was sort of an outsider at times, particularly in fifth grade. I don't know what they did when you were in fifth grade, but for me that's when they studied the American Revolution. And because I had this British accent, when we got to that part, I got beat up every day for two weeks.
Mark Malatesta: You've got to be kidding.
Peter E. Murphy: Not only that, but I got left back in fifth grade. So it happened again the second year. That's when I decided I had to talk like everybody else. I started deliberately talking like, "Youz guys," and everybody else from the neighborhoods, rather than the way that was natural to me, so I could protect myself.
Mark Malatesta: It's interesting, with history. My wife is originally from Sweden, and we were at a neighbor's house for something, new neighbors. They found out she was from Sweden, and suddenly a wall went up because of something in Swedish history. I was like, "Hello, that was a long time ago, and she didn't have anything to do with that." Such is life, right?
Peter E. Murphy: That is. I can identify with a lot of what's going on with kids who come here from other countries, immigrants and stuff like that. Even though I came from Britain, for Pete's sake, you know, at that time, that wasn't normal. As a kid, you have to fit in, right? That's why, I guess, I thought my childhood was normal, because I was trying to fit in, trying to be like everybody else. I knew I wasn't doing a great job, but I thought it was all right.
Mark Malatesta: Right. I'm excited, and tempted to do it now, but I'll stay on script, because I'm supposed to ask you about tips on writing later. But I'm excited to get into the manuscript more, and talk about how that evolved. Memoir is especially fascinating to me, because it's personal. Sometimes it's quite a journey, somebody getting their personal journey out and hopefully, eventually, transforming it into something thematically relatable to a broad audience, which I know you've done. I want to get into that in a bit.
First, let's go back to when you got the news, like how things unfolded. Everyone's journey is so different. I just love getting people to share their stories. What were you doing the day you got the news you had the agent and/or the publisher, or both? However you want to talk about that. How did that unfold? And whatever you want to say about leading up to that. And, have you done anything to celebrate?
Peter E. Murphy: When I finally got the message from an agent that he wanted to represent me, I was very excited. I had been working with you, and I didn't know anything about querying agents or anything else. I had a vague idea. I have to say something else: I do a lot of teaching writing workshops, and I have a publishing workshop I lead from time to time. Because I didn't know much about agents at that time, when I was leading those workshops, all I had were bad agent stories. I would share those. For example, one friend of mine had an agent, and he was afraid to contact the agent. He didn't want to bother him. He finally did after months and months, then found the agent had died.
Mark Malatesta: Oh, no.
Pt 5: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Peter E. Murphy: Another person had an agent she thought was working very hard for her. Then the agent invited themself and their husband over for a holiday, and sort of took over the house for a weekend, then was no longer her agent. I have a bunch of stories like this, and those aren't the worst. Then I figured, okay, I have a good agent story. I got an agent, and this guy, he was very laudatory. We spoke on the phone, and he was talking about what a graphic story I had. He could see this on Netflix and other stuff like that.
The agency had a good history with getting a lot of their books turned into films and TV shows. I was thrilled. Wow, Netflix. So that happened, I think, the middle of April. Then, on May 1, I happened to be in Wales visiting friends, and I found out the agent had been fired. For two weeks I had an agent. I contacted the agency, the woman who was in charge couldn't tell me what the person did, just that it was egregious and they didn't have anyone else to represent me. So now, when I do those presentations, I have my own bad agent story to tell.
Mark Malatesta: Wow.
Peter E. Murphy: The good part about getting the agent is that when I did get the phone call that I had an agent... I live on an island off the coast of New Jersey. It's a barrier island, about five miles out to sea. I drove onto the mainland. I drove over three or four bridges. I paid the tolls. I went to a diner and had a big piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee. That was my celebration. And then when my wife got home, I told her about it and called my daughter. I wanted to celebrate by being decadent. And these days, that's about as decadent I can get.
Mark Malatesta: I love that.
Peter E. Murphy: I decided, at that point, let me try some other paths. I'd been querying agents and had a lot of positive responses, a lot of bites and nibbles, but nobody swallowed the hook. I started to send the query and materials we put together out to independent presses that didn't require agents, and boom, two people were very interested. I thought, "Okay, which one's it going to be?" And one of them made an offer. I'm so thrilled with that. McFarland published my memoir.
Mark Malatesta: A lot of people don't realize you can do that, but there are quite a few independent publishers, some of them big, some medium, some small, that do a really good job. And you wouldn't know the difference looking at the quality of the books. I mean the quality of the writing and also the produced work, how it's printed and the covers and all that. You just have to be careful and pitch the right ones that don't charge fees, right? Sometimes they're sneaky about it. It can look like a good one. Then all of a sudden you get an offer, and it's not.
Pt 6: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Peter E. Murphy: I don't know if I told you this, but when I did get the offer from McFarland, I looked through their list, and I saw some books that were not similar to mine, but I somehow felt connected with them. I wrote to three of their authors, and two of them didn't respond, but one of them did, and she's become a very good friend. We've never spoken on the phone, but we have a very lively email correspondence. She was able to share her experiences with me and what worked for her, what she wished she had known, what she's grateful for.
After speaking with her quite a bit, several correspondences, I decided, "Okay, I do want to go with this press." I felt very confident about it, and I bought her book, which was gorgeous and well written and well edited. I figured I'd be proud of a book like that too. So I'm happy I made that decision, and now I have an extra friend.
Mark Malatesta: Right. [Laughter] So let's get into the case study stuff, or the tips and advice other writers can model. If we go back to the beginning, everyone's different, when did you first get the idea you might be a writer or author?
Peter E. Murphy: My book has several themes in it. It's called A Tipsy Fairy Tale. It's a coming of age memoir of alcohol and redemption. So, one of the big themes is alcohol addiction and recovery. But one of the themes of the book that's really led me to recover is becoming a poet. When I was about 15, I fell in love with writing poetry, which was really a no-no in the neighborhood where I lived. I couldn't tell anybody. That was around the same time I also fell in love with alcohol. They were the two things that made sense to me.
If I back up a tiny bit, part of the childhood that I had once my mother died, and I didn't know till years later that she committed suicide... Once she died, I was moved around from home to home for a bit, and some of those homes were loving and kind. Others weren't. During that time, I was abused by a priest for almost a year, and you mentioned the accident... I broke a collarbone and six ribs in a horrific accident, and I was about 15 when that happened. One of the downsides of that was a lot of pain, and what I thought was an upside, the pain pills I was given during that time period. I called them my little buddies, and, at that time, ironically, The Rolling Stones' song Mother's Little Helper was on the airwaves.
Mark Malatesta: Mm-hmm.
Pt 7: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Peter E. Murphy: They were my little helpers. Once I healed from that, and the pills were cut off, I discovered drinking and alcohol. That's what I was doing to try, without being all corny, to make it through. I describe my high-school years as my as early derelict period. I got deeper and deeper into my crush on alcohol. I mean, I was off the rods, or, off the rails. The only thing that kept me going was my affection I had for poetry: reading and writing poetry. I wanted to be a poet, and I felt good about that, because I didn't know anybody else in the world at that point who wrote poetry or wanted to be a poet.
I didn't even know if I could be a poet, and I didn't know how to be a poet, but I figured I would figure that out along the way. My book is really a story of how poetry led me, literally, geographically, back to Wales, where I was born, and around the British Isles, up to Scotland and over to Ireland, unfortunately, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Then to the city of Limerick, when I went looking for the limerick and all of that in search of poetry. Eventually, when I hit rock bottom, poetry was the only thing I had left. So I stopped drinking and made my life around poetry. I've done that now for over 50 years. I created a career out of poetry and teaching poetry and writing poetry. So that's the backstory. And now that I've said all that Mark, I forgot what the exact question was.
Mark Malatesta: [Laughter] It was about when you first got the idea you might be a writer. How old were you when you started writing poetry?
Peter E. Murphy: 15. I took my first poetry workshop when I was a senior in high school. A friend of mine made the mistake of telling me, he was going to Queens College in New York City, that they were offering a poetry writing workshop for the first time. I wasn't a very expressive person, but I managed to talk him into registering for the course and letting me go instead. I became Larry Moscaloni, and, at this poetry workshop, I learned a lot. I also learned I wasn't a very good poet at the time. I began to read poetry, and that changed everything. It never occurred to me I should read other poetry.
I realized that the 200 or so poems I'd written in two years were probably not very good. That's when I started to decide I really wanted to be a poet, a good poet. I wanted to write stuff nobody had ever written before, and not in any kind of way anybody's ever written before, and that led me on that journey. One funny thing is, I remember getting to the class, the poetry workshop, and I was expecting the professor to be this old, withered, wrinkled woman who was a poet. It turned out she was a young, very attractive, beautiful woman, and I sort of fell in love with her.
Mark Malatesta: [Chuckles]
Peter E. Murphy: She was taking the role, and she said, "Moscaloni, Larry Moscaloni." I forgot it was me. After the third time I raised my hand. I was hoping she wouldn't ask me to spell it. I didn't know how to spell this name. I sat there for the semester, just looking at her, madly in love and afraid to say a word.
Pt 8: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: We're kindred spirits in a few ways, a couple you already know, but writing poetry... I was in college when I started, and that that was what got me interested in writing and publishing, and this whole world. I was searching too, at the time, not in exactly the same way as you, but I think that's what draws a lot of people to writing.
Peter E. Murphy: It's a way of trying to not just express yourself, but I was trying... Once I finally started getting serious, I was trying to understand myself in the world, and I was doing that through writing. It was a whole lot more rewarding than just expressing myself, which is how I started out. I started out writing the usual teenage schlock: how miserable the world is. Then I began writing to explore the world. What can I do with this language here, mixing it up and trying to create something that's never been said before. That's really what interested me.
Mark Malatesta: And the nice thing about poetry is, when you run into the limits of "things that have already been said," you can at least find a unique way to say them. [Laughter]
Peter E. Murphy: Exactly, exactly. Yep. [Laughter]
Mark Malatesta: So, how did you progress from the poet to other things as a writer?
Peter E. Murphy: I mentioned poetry led me overseas. I left the United States, to go back to Wales. I got in trouble. I wonder if I ever told you this part. Well, you sort of mentioned it in the introduction. I got in a lot of trouble when I was 20 years old. I was working at a bar. Oh, I have to say this: I described my high school years as my early derelict period; my mid-derelict period is when I got out of high school, flunked out of three colleges, and then went to work at a bar because I wanted to be near what I loved. That lasted about three or four years, and I got in so much trouble. I decided the only way to get out of it was to leave the country and flee. Part of that was I owed this Mafia-connected dentist $1,000. I was living at my parents at the time, and my father would get these threatening phone calls, "Hey, you don't pay. You don't do the right thing." I was just afraid the guy was going to repossess my teeth or something.
I did what a brave man does: I fled; I ran away. I didn't know where to go, so I said, "Let me go to Wales." By that point, I knew I was born in Wales, but I didn't know anything about it. So the week before my 21st birthday, I wound up in Great Britain, and I figured I had enough money for a couple of weeks, maybe three. I was trying to figure out what I could do, cool off, think, and then solve my problems. But, being the man I was, a "brave man," I realized, well, nobody in the entire country of Europe knows who I am or what I am, that I'm a screw up. I decided, let me just stay as long as I can. So that three weeks turned into almost a year, a transformative year that changed my life, and that became what I call me late derelict period.
Mark Malatesta: [Laughter]
Pt 9: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Peter E. Murphy: I discovered my mother's family, she had been born in Wales, and I had a whole lot of other adventures. About half the book is set in Great Britain and Ireland and Northern Ireland. So, when I returned, sober, at the age of 21, I tried to create a new life. I knew I couldn't go back to working at the bar, because that would be dangerous for somebody who loved drinking so much. I wound up working construction, and didn't like that so much. Then I picked up a book. So literally, somebody else's book changed my life.
Mark Malatesta: So it apparently wasn't a lack of intellect, the three flunkings.
Peter E. Murphy: It was a book by a poet named Kenneth Koch, called Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry. I read that book and said, "That's what I want to do. I want to teach kids to write poetry." But then I had the realization, well, you know, if you're going to be a teacher, you'll have to go back to college. But I was too stupid to go to college. I mean, I flunked out three times, so I didn't think I could do it. I finally got my nerve together and tried again, and eventually went to college number four that I did not flunk out of, and I graduated from college number five.
I grew up thinking I was stupid. I didn't know anything. People told me I was stupid, and I believed them. And I did stupid things, so I believed them. I had the evidence, so many stupid things. But then when I finally could think clearly, I realized my life didn't have to be that way. That's one of the other parts of the story. I have to say, Mark, I have to thank you for that, because when I showed you the draft of the manuscript as we started working, you told me it wasn't finished, that I had to write what happened.
That's when I wrote the other part, about returning to United States and becoming sober and trying to make a life out of it. I didn't want to do that. It's going to sound strange, but in some ways, that was more personal, writing about a spiritual change, a transformation. That was harder to write about than lying in the street peeing myself and blacking out from drinking. It was harder to talk about that belief that eventually came to me, and how that was part of the transformation I went through.
Mark Malatesta: I remember. Do you remember how much space you had in the book allocated to that? It may have just been a small number of pages originally.
Peter E. Murphy: I had very little allocated to it until you basically said, "The story, isn't over, the story's not over." I was thinking, "Damn you, damn you." [Laughter]
Mark Malatesta: [Laughter] I was like, "Wait, that's the best part of the book. Like, we're going through all that to get to that. And then it's almost just like an author note at the end with happily ever after and we're good?"
Pt 10: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Peter E. Murphy: So I probably added another, almost a third, to the book to get to that, and then I cut it back. Once I accepted that I had to do it, I began to do it, and I did it proudly. But it's interesting. I think about taboos in society. I can talk about my derelict periods, and I can do it now with pride that I survived them, but it's a lot harder talking about the spiritual parts of life, particularly in a public way. I mean, with friends, it's one thing, but in a public way it's hard to talk about.
When the process began, I came across these people in Limerick, Ireland who had this new religion, and I had just had this shooting incident in Northern Ireland that convinced me I didn't believe in God. When I met these people, they were members of a religion I never heard of, called the Baha'i Faith. I was fascinated by them because they seemed to be authentic, they were positive, and they didn't seem to have a lot of the baggage of the religion I grew up with.
If they had only believed in alcohol instead of God, I probably would have signed up right away, but they didn't. So I just thought I could never live that kind of life. Six to seven months later, when I hit rock bottom, I realized they might have something that could help me. That's the part I had trouble talking about, how I went from this atheist lying in the gutter person to realizing maybe I could believe in God, and then eventually believing in God. That process is how the book concludes: how that changed my life and how poetry led me through that.
Mark Malatesta: And in the broadest sense, with God, in that it's not religious or trying to make anyone religious, right?
Peter E. Murphy: No, not at all. It's as I said. I'm shy about writing about it. It's just when I realized I had permission, and I guess you gave me that permission, I just told my story, and I did it in a way that I'm as just skeptical about this as you to read, and I don't know what's happening, but all of a sudden, now things are getting good. I was sort of reluctant to do that. That whole process was difficult. Then returning to the United States and trying to make friends with my family was difficult. It was all difficult.
It wasn't easy at all, but for the first time in my life, I wasn't making excuses, and for the first time in my recent life, I wasn't relying on alcohol or drugs or something else. I was saying, "Okay, I believe now I have the capacity to do this, and I'm going to grow doing this, so, let me try to do it." I still made a lot of mistakes, but I knew it was a process. I wasn't supposed to be perfect, but moving toward a good life. Instead of a life basically focused on myself, a life of trying to serve others and help others, and that that would help me. It had never occurred to me. I'd never heard of that. Poetry was a big part of that. I eventually went to become that teacher, teaching poetry to children. I taught at Atlantic City High School in New Jersey, where I taught poetry and creative writing for three decades. So, it worked.
Pt 11: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Mark Malatesta: Is it safe to say, since we've covered the early, mid, and late derelict period that you're now permanently in the post-derelict period?
Peter E. Murphy: I am post, but I have to say something, and this I allude to in the book. I don't go into much detail. There was an article in the Michigan Quarterly Review about this. When I was sober, about 15 years, I started to have drinking dreams. That's when I went to AA for the first time, after not having a drink in 15 years.
Mark Malatesta: Mmm.
Peter E. Murphy: it really surprised me, because I thought this was a problem I had licked. Then I began to study and understand better the process of what addiction is. One is never truly recovered from it. It's always a process of recovering. Man, was that a shock to me.
Mark Malatesta: Right.
Peter E. Murphy: I didn't know that was gonna be a problem anymore. I don't have drinking dreams to that extent anymore, but I tell you, sometimes I can taste something and it's like, wow. Why is that even happening? So that might be another book. That might be the next book I write.
Mark Malatesta: Dreams and the universe. They show us things sometimes. If you have three nights in a row where you're dreaming about your teeth falling out, you might want to go to the dentist.
Peter E. Murphy: [Laughter] I haven't had that dream yet, but now that you've put it in my consciousness... Damn you, Mark. Damn you.
Mark Malatesta: [Laughter] All right, so let's see, what about any formal education aimed at writing? Things like MFA degrees, workshops, conferences, you've led tons of those things. How important was anything like that, or working with any coaches, consultants, editors, going to conferences, whatever, prior to you writing this book, that you think might be helpful for other people to think about doing?
Peter E. Murphy: I thought as a kid that I didn't want to study anybody else. I didn't want to read writing or poetry by others. I thought it would "influence me." What I didn't know at that time is that we need to be influenced to become better writers. I was just writing cliches, whatever had already been written before, so many times. I was lucky enough to be discovered by one of my professors. This was at college number two, and I mentioned him in the book.
He was the first adult to take me seriously as a poet, Hubert Babinski. He said I was a poet, and he was my first mentor. I would share poems with him every week or two, and he would tell me where they were strong, and what drove a poem. I didn't know poems could be driven. I thought you just sort of wrote that whatever flopped into your head. He recommended I take poetry workshops, so I started to do that.
Mark Malatesta: Right.
Pt 12: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Peter E. Murphy: I was lucky. In New York City, they had the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center. So I took poetry workshops with John Logan and Isabella Gardner. They were my first poetry workshops. Then finally, years later, when I got sober and went to college number five, I had the good fortune of working with the poet named Stephen Dunn, who eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. He became my greatest mentor, over a period of 40-something years. At first he was my professor, then a mentor, colleague, and friend. I think I learned more from him than from anybody else. One of the big thing I learned is that...I thought poets had to be miserable.
Mark Malatesta: [Laughter]
Peter E. Murphy: I have this one section in the book where I decided I could either be a poet or I could be happy. I decided I'd rather be a poet. When I met Stephen, I realized he's a happy guy. He's got a family, he's got a wife, he's not screwed up, he's not a druggie or an alcoholic. He's an athlete.
Mark Malatesta: I love that.
Peter E. Murphy: It was a shock to me and I realized, well, maybe I can be a poet and be happy too. I took my adult education as a poet, and then Stephen encouraged me to go to the conference. I went to Bread Loaf for the first time, which was a challenging experience. He encouraged me to apply to Yaddo, the artist colony, which I went to a number of times, and to apply for grants. That's when I began to do that. I never got a formal MFA or Masters in Fine Arts. When I finally graduated from college number five, which was 1976, there weren't many MFA programs around at the time, maybe a dozen.
I applied to three or four of them and didn't get in. I was waitlisted at one, and I'm so grateful, because although I'd been thinking of myself as a poet, I wasn't ready. I didn't have the discipline it would require for that kind of intense study. I didn't have the imagination yet. Let me say I had the imagination, but I didn't know how to tap my imagination or use it. I was lucky enough to be recently married. My wife had a steady job, and had we moved away to go to the program, I don't think I would have made it. And frankly, I think my marriage would have made it, because I would not have survived.
So, I basically was self-instructed. I went to conferences, I went to workshops, I studied with a lot of poets I admired, and eventually, I think that's how I became a poet...doing all of that. I made a lot of mistakes, but I realized that's what you have to do. Write a lot of bad poems, because the more bad poems you write, the better chance you have of writing good poems.
Pt 13: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Mark Malatesta: That's empowering for people. You don't have to disrupt your life or do something as big as an MFA program, or even pay for something like that. I did an interview like this recently with another client, and she said, "I decided I was going to create my own MFA program." That's kind of what you did, piece things together.
Peter E. Murphy: That's exactly it. And, for the last more than 30 years, I've been leading those kinds of writing workshops for poets and memoir writers, etc. I was guided into that when I was teaching high school in the 80s and 90s.People would say, "How do you find time to write?" At that time, I was lucky enough, I would rent a hotel room one weekend a month, and I'd go away to write. So many people said, "I wish I could go with you." And so I stupidly invited...
Mark Malatesta: And you've never had a weekend alone since.
Peter E. Murphy: That was the problem. I booked a room, a block of rooms, at a hotel in Cape May, New Jersey, which is a coastal summer resort. I booked in January because it was cheap. I invited 15 poets to come with me, and wound up having 20. I called it The Winter Poetry Getaway. I figured it was is a one-off, but then they wanted to do it again the following year. Some prose writer friends, some novelist friends, said, "We want to come too." So I called it The Winter Poetry (and Prose) Getaway, and had like 30 people. The prose people didn't like the parentheses. So, the third year, I called it the 3rd Annual Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, and I had almost 50 people.
Within five years, I had over 100 people. And within eight years, I had over 200 people coming. I had to hire a lot of other writers to help lead the workshops. I had no more time to write. That backfired, but that was also wonderful, because in teaching something, particularly with adults, I learned so much about how to do it... One of the things in my workshops, I was very clear about, I don't care if a person has published and won a million prizes, or if they're writing for the first time. When you come to one of my workshops, you're going to learn, and we're all going to learn together, and going to leave the workshop, whether it's a day or a week or a weekend, as better writers.
I somehow stumbled on that early in my life and created an ego-free zone, and I think that's why it's been successful. It's been around for over 30 years. You mentioned in the biography, Stockton University, part of the state university system in New Jersey, made me an offer I couldn't refuse, about 10 years ago. They hired me and my staff. They took it over, and now I have the best of all these worlds.
Mark Malatesta: I love that, and I love what you didn't say, directly, which is you've also kept an ego-free zone in your own writing. Some people, I imagine, when I was reading your bio at the top of the interview, were thinking, "Well, why in the world would that guy need help or seek help?"
Peter E. Murphy: Mmm.
Pt 14: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: Each book's different. I'm curious for you, we may have talked about this a while back. I won't remember, but especially when you're writing memoir...it can be even harder to have that distance and see your own work. You're helping other people with their memoirs, but how has that been different? How is that different for you in your process, seeing and writing your own versus helping someone with theirs? And are there any other tips you think would be helpful for someone writing a book, whether it's memoir or anything else?
Peter E. Murphy: it's very clear to me, when working with somebody else, where their story is. I'm very good at helping them discover that story. I get a glimpse of it, but then I'm good at helping them uncover it. It's not as easy for me. We're all blind to ourselves. When I first started writing my memoir, I was reluctant, I mentioned. My father was a GI during WWII who was stationed in Wales outside the small city of Newport. He fell in love with a barmaid at a pub called the Windsor Castle Hotel, and they got engaged right before he shot off for D-Day. That's where my story began. That's not how the book begins, but that's how my story began. So I didn't want to tell my story. For two years, I did a lot of research about WWII in Europe, about D-Day. I wrote about them meeting, and all of their story.
My friend who talked me into this said, "Where are you in this story?" I said, "I don't want to be in my story." She said, "It's your memoir." So then I started writing my own parts to it. It's like getting into a tub of hot water, or very cold water, sort of putting my toe in, then gradually getting into it. I think I didn't write it as a book at first. I wrote it as essays, personal essays, some of them just a few-hundred words, some of them longer, just trying to understand, do I have a story? Was my life that extraordinary that I can tell about it? As I started writing these bits and pieces, more bits and pieces came. And as I started writing, more stories came. I realized, "Oh, I do have a story."
Mark Malatesta: Right.
Peter E. Murphy: I'll be frank, it took several years from the time I started writing it, to realize what my story was, or part of what that story was. That was very difficult for me. I knew, again, I could help other people write their story, but it took me a while to figure out my story. I think when I finally accepted that my life wasn't normal, I had several questions.
One, why was I such a screwup as a kid? How did that happen, that I became that kind of a druggie and alcoholic at such a young age? Another part of the story is what happened to my mother when I discovered my family in Wales, those who were so alive, who remembered her, said she was such a happy, really wonderful, kind young woman. But something happened when she moved to New York City. What was that story?
So, part of the memoir is almost like a mystery when trying to solve this problem with my mother, and what led to her, what I describe as her great sadness that caused her to end her life, and then her life. It created chaos for my life. So I was able to do that. I was able to solve that problem, and I was able to solve the problem of why I was such a screwup? I think I answered my questions.
Pt 15: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Mark Malatesta: It's so often a common theme that I see when working with people writing memoir. In the beginning, it's like, "How did I get here?" People are often in different places. You probably know this, and can speak to this. It usually starts with, how did I get here, and it's kind of like, "Life happened to me," or, "People did these things, and that's why..." Then, eventually, in the better memoirs, the author is taking some responsibility. Part of that realization, that shift, that growth, is the story. That's the story, more than what happened.
Peter E. Murphy: It's interesting you said that. I grew up in religious circumstances, and when my mother died, I was put in a home, a very strict Catholic home, where I was beat a lot. It was so miserable, I thought I was in hell, but I was confused, because I thought I had to die first before I went to hell. I was seven years old, so I didn't know. I didn't remember dying, so I felt really stupid, because I must have died because I was in hell, but I remember dying. Years later, I read a quote by George Orwell in an essay of his. He said, "Sin isn't something that you do, it's something that happens to you." I was like, "Ah, that's what happened. If hell happened to me, I didn't do it. It happened to me."
Mark Malatesta: Right.
Peter E. Murphy: That was sort of a revelation. That was around the time I started writing poetry and started drinking, when I came across that quote.
Mark Malatesta: Now, I'm going to put you on the spot here, and you may have thought about this already, maybe not. I'm not suggesting that's the case with your book, but where you were saying before you had so much of the dark and all of that was the story, and then just a little bit of the light in the end. I'm wondering if you have an opinion, you've worked with a lot of other memoir writers, do you think sometimes the temptation is to focus a lot, maybe too much, on the dark and the heavy and all that, because we're trying to be dramatic as writers, and also that we want the reader to feel sorry for us. Are those two things that sometimes get somebody to maybe emphasize those things too much?
Pt 16: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Peter E. Murphy: I think that's very seductive. Yes, something you said when we were we were working on this together, on the manuscript...you said something to the effect that when I was living in this commune in Wales, "Okay, you were dirty. Get over it." I was like, "Okay." I understood that immediately, that I had too much about that sordid side of the flophouse I was living in. It is seductive. One of the things I did, and I didn't realize that I did it so well until four people who wrote blurbs or advance reviews for the book, mentioned how funny the book is. I don't want to write a book or read a book that's all gloom and doom. I don't want to read a book and want to slice my wrist.
I was able to temper a lot of what I was writing about with humor, much of it self-deprecating humor. But then other things kind of happened. It was just trying to understand my world, and making these decisions about what the world is like, and then quite funny, some of them, that didn't quite mean that. So I think you're right, that's an attraction I said earlier...it's easy to write about those darker parts at times. But then it's harder to write about the more positive parts. Also, what's a good story? Much of great literature, the Western tradition, that's books like War and Peace, and they're not really uplifting, a lot of it. It's hard to write a book that will interest somebody else if it's all, "Oh, life is good. No problem," then what's the story?
Mark Malatesta: Right. We don't have one.
Peter E. Murphy: You have to have a balance. I think you have to have enough drama in the book so that somebody will want to turn the page and see what happened. Two of the people, in fact, I just ran into somebody at the gym this morning, who read my book. The first thing she said to me was, "How did you survive?" And one of the people wrote a blurb for the book said that as well, "It's amazing you survived." Again, part of that normal life, I thought I had, just trying to survive, but then I looked back at some of the experiences I had.
I didn't mention it here, but I had guns pulled on me five times before the age of 21. Only shot once. I wasn't shot, but shot at. So that's a big part of us. And then, everything else that went on. I almost saw myself like this bumpkin, in things with no idea was going on. When I was in Wales hitchhiking around, I wound up at a meeting of Welsh nationalists who perhaps were planning to blow up a bridge. I'm not sure. They were speaking Welsh. So there was a lot of stuff that happened. I just don't know what I was doing, but I survived, thankfully.
Mark Malatesta: It's funny, unintended pun there, but I'll take it, I'm glad you mentioned the humor. I was going to mention that later. Earlier, when you were talking about the story, I was thinking you have those unique elements. You have humor that doesn't usually appear in a book like this. You have heart and relatable themes, and you, being a poet, also separates it. You have quite a few things going on. And that man you mentioned earlier, the writer, where you were like, "Oh, wait, he's a poet and he's successful and has a normal life and he's happy." I think that would be definitely be up there on your list of things that helped you get where you are, just seeing what's possible. If we don't know what's possible, we don't even dare to dream it, right?
Peter E. Murphy: That's a good point. Even though I grew up in New York City with such a very small world, somewhere along the line, I described that I left the tiny world of New York City for the giant world of Wales, which can fit inside New Jersey. But that's what happened.
Pt 17: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Mark Malatesta: What about traditional publishing versus self-publishing, vanity presses, all that? You're out there in the world of writing. You've seen it all. So, when you were first thinking about getting a book or chapbook, let's say either, I don't know what came first, published, what was your thinking about traditional versus self-publishing? I mean, self-publishing has always been around, but what was it initially, how has that changed over the years, and why did you want to go traditional with this book?
Peter E. Murphy: Back when I started writing poetry, and publishing in journals and magazines, I thought I would easily have a book published by the time I was 30. Then 40. My first book was published when I was 54, which surprised me. It was a very small press, but it was traditional, and I felt it had value if somebody else had vetted it, somebody else read it and liked it and was enthusiastic about it. I didn't want to pay to have my book published in a vanity press or self-publishing. Self-publishing was beginning at least online back then, but I didn't want to do that. It just, to me, had no value. I was, I guess, enough of a, I don't want to say snob, but enough of a professional to know if my work was going to be any good, it had to earn it, rather than me just saying, "Oh, I published this book, and I expect you to read it."
Once I published that first book, which was about 20 years ago now, this is my twelfth book in 20 years, something happened. It took me a long time to write that first book, which is called Stubborn Child, a poetry book. After that came a number of chapbooks, and then I wrote two books on craft, on writing, and then a chapbook for the memoir that came out before the memoir. Now this. So I think something happened exponentially, and part of that had to do with the writing workshops I was doing. I was learning more. I was making more of an audience. I don't know how else to say it. It was just never an option for me to go anything other than traditional.
Mark Malatesta: Mm-hmm.
Peter E. Murphy: Chapbooks are wonderful little things, for your listeners who don't know what a chapbook is. It's a book of maybe 15 to 25 or 30 pages, and the term comes from chapters. Think of it as a chapter book. So most of my chapbooks are poetry, where they have maybe 20 or 25 pages in poetry, although the memoir, part of the memoir came out as a chapbook, maybe 35 or 40 pages. There was just one section of the book, that went into a second printing. So it occurred to me there was an audience for this, and that kept me going. It was never a decision for me to go traditional. What was a decision was how to do that. That's where you came into the picture.
Pt 18: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: Got it. What about promotion? Any advice for writers on that front, in addition to the obvious, which is, you mentioned nurturing those connections and relationships. I hope you, right now, are cashing in on all those people like me, and everyone else in your world, or orbit, getting them to hopefully raise awareness about the book.
Peter E. Murphy: Yes. That's what I'm doing with my time right now. The book has just come out, and I'm letting people know about it through social media and other means. The publisher's also having a campaign. So, that's good. But I think what's most important and I'm most concerned about is writing a good book. Write a book that others who don't know or care about you would want to read. What I do in my writing workshops is tell people, "You have to write a good first sentence, and that first sentence might take you a month or a year to write, but that first sentence...you want that first sentence to be so good that your reader, who has a million things to do, and a million Netflix shows piled up that they want to watch. And they have newspapers and their family and they have jobs. Why should they bother to read anything you write? Why should you expect them to?
Mark Malatesta: Right.
Peter E. Murphy: So you have to write a first sentence that's going to be so good I want to read the second sentence. Then you want them to finish the paragraph. Then you want them to reach the end of the page. And you want to write so well they're going to want to turn the page and read more. That's what I emphasize when I'm teaching writing, and that's what I try to do for myself. I'm thinking of that reader who doesn't know or care about Peter Murphy. Why should that person be interested in my story?
I write that, then worry about the promotion later. This may not be the best answer, but write the book, write the story, write the poem, write the essay. And, as you're writing it, and you see what that is when you're revising it, then start thinking, "Okay, what would be the best place for this to be? Where have I read things like that? What journals? What are the publishers that have published stuff like this that I admire, where I would be proud to see my work? That's where I would think in terms of that part of the process of promotion and publication. But you have to write a good book. Otherwise it's not going to happen.
Mark Malatesta: Well, you have to read us your opening line now.
Peter E. Murphy: Okay, what did I do with it?
Mark Malatesta: I have it right here. Look at that. This is not staged. I just have the book here. I wasn't expecting you say that. But here it is. "'I think there's someone in there,' Twiz says, pressing her one good eye against the beveled glass door of the Windsor Castle Hotel, which is neither a castle nor a hotel, but a rundown pub in Newport, a rundown city in South Wales." I'd say that qualifies. Good thing you have a good one.
Peter E. Murphy: I wish I had written that.
Mark Malatesta: Right?
Peter E. Murphy: It took me a long time to write that sentence.
Pt 19: Mark Malatesta Interview & Review
Mark Malatesta: All right. So you talked a little bit about our work together. Is there anything else you can remember, for anybody thinking about doing something with me, that could be important or interesting, or worth their consideration?
Peter E. Murphy: I'm gonna maybe make you blush a little bit here. But when I first learned about you from one of my friends who had worked with you, I was reluctant. Why do I need a guy like this? Why do I need an agent coach who's going to help me this process? I realized I didn't know this process, but figured I could figure it out myself. That's what I thought, the way I figured out other things. But I took the risk and contacted you, and we had our first phone call. After that phone call I realized this was the real deal. I thought, "I don't know what I'm doing but this guy does." So I decided then that I'd consider working with you, Mark.
Then I had to think about what your fees are. My wife and daughter surprised the hell out of me by saying, "You need to do this. You need to spend this money and do this." I had the money. It wasn't really a big deal, but I figured, "Do I need to? I've been teaching writing for decades." But I realized I did, and I'm so grateful I did. What I tell other people, I'm not sure I told you, but the first thing we did together...while you were reading the manuscript, you had me read three books. One was Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir. Another book, Story, by Robert McKee, about writing stories. And another book about writing film scripts.
Mark Malatesta: Mm-hmm.
Peter E. Murphy: I was thinking, "Why am I doing this?" You had me write reports on that. Then, when we talked, you told me my book wasn't finished, that I had to write that last part. When I eventually did that, and you read it two more times, you finally said, "Okay, this is complete." If we did nothing else together, it would have been worth the investment that I made, because that's the book that I wrote, and that's the book I'm proud of.
But that's not all. I mean, I'm going to sound like a TV infomercial now, "Wait, there's more!" There was how to write a proposal and all this other stuff, and then the process of trying to find an agent. That, to me, was gravy. I would have been perfectly happy with just the work we had done on the manuscript. It was so helpful to me to realize you saw my story, the way I see it in others. You saw my story and wouldn’t let me get away with it. So, thank you.
Pt 20: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: My pleasure. It's been an honor, and it's been fun. Coaching is an interesting thing. I've worked with a lot of people, doing this for 14 years, and the years being an agent. I'm sure I told you on many calls, I'm really grateful you're open and doing the work. I probably sound weird saying that constantly, but sometimes it's a battle to help somebody. That can sound strange, especially when they hire you and pay you a bunch of money to help them. But sometimes that's what it is. It's so great when somebody is ego-less. I mean, we all have ego, right? But we listen, apply things, and get help. We don't have time to become experts at everything. We can figure it out ourselves, but the older we get, there are other things in life.
Peter E. Murphy: That's it, and I could have figured it out myself, but I would not have done it as well. It would not have been as good, and I don't think I would have been as successful. It wasn't my area. That's the thing. Part of what my daughter said to me is that here I am helping other people with their writing, and what I'm good at. I need to realize I'm not good at this. Here's somebody who is, so that was convincing. I'd be a hypocrite if I said, "Oh, I don't need help."
Mark Malatesta: Right. Any closing thought for everyone?
Peter E. Murphy: I would just say that I know your audience here is writers. Frankly, the world doesn't care, but you do, and the people you love care. If you have a story, you have to write it. You want to share that story with others, and do whatever you need to do. That means find good help. Find me if you need help writing it. Find Mark if you need help getting it out into the world.
Mark Malatesta: Yes.
Peter E. Murphy: And the other part is, if you don't have a community that supports you, of other writers, create it. That's what I did. Find other people who'll be interested, it doesn't matter if they're any good or what their interest is, create a community where you can support each other. Now, online, it's so much easier. You can work with people who don't live near you. Go to workshops, attend conferences, find out what the business is like, because it is a business. Get that help and support. It really is a lovely life. I never thought, as a kid, I'd be able to say that. It's a lovely life being a writer.
Mark Malatesta: On many levels. All right. Well, thank you again, so much, for doing this. I'm very excited. I'll be watching and doing some things with you to help you promote the book. And thank you for preparing the way you did, with actionable items that people can do things with.
Peter E. Murphy: Well, thank you, Mark. it's been an honor to be working with you all these years, and to be part of this this little presentation, this little chat we had. Thank you.
Mark Malatesta: My pleasure.
Pt 21: Mark Malatesta Review & Interview
Mark Malatesta: Okay everyone, this is Mark Malatesta, founder of The Bestselling Author, with Peter Murphy, author of A Tipsy Fairy Tale, published by McFarland Books. You can learn more about Peter at peteremurphy.com.
And, if you’re interested in a private 1-on-1 coaching call with me, to talk about the best way to write, publish, or promote your book, visit AuthorConsultation.com.
Lastly, if you’re listening to this interview—or reading the transcript—and you’re not yet a member of my online community, register now [it's free] at TheBestsellingAuthor.com for instant access to more information (and inspiration) like this, to help you become the bestselling author you can be.
Remember…
Getting published isn’t luck, it’s a decision.
See you next time.
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About Author Coach Mark Malatesta
This interview and review of Mark Malatesta were provided by Peter E. Murphy, author of the memoir, A Tipsy Fairy Tale, published by McFarland Books. Peter worked with Mark, an author coach and consultant, to get a literary agent and publisher.
Mark Malatesta is a former literary agent and former AAR member who's now helped 400+ authors of all Book Genres (fiction, nonfiction, and children's books) get literary agents and/or traditional publishers. Mark is Founder & CEO of Literary Agent Undercover, a division of The Bestselling Author, through which he provides 1-on-Literary Agent Advice (coaching and consulting).
Mark's writers have gotten offers of representation from the Best Literary Agents at the Top Literary Agencies; book deals with major publishers such as Harper Collins, Random House, and Thomas Nelson; and sold millions of books. They've been on the New York Times bestseller list; had their work optioned for TV, stage, and feature film; won countless awards; and had their work licensed in 40+ countries.
Mark is also the creator of the well-known Directory of Literary Agents, with a comprehensive List of Literary Agents seeking writers. In addition, Mark is the host of Ask a Literary Agent, and author of the popular How to Get a Literary Agent Guide. His articles have appeared in outlets such as the Writer's Digest Guide to Literary Agents and the Publishers Weekly Book Publishing Almanac.
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Mark Malatesta Reviews - Former Literary Agent
Here you can see more Mark Malatesta reviews from authors like Peter E. Murphy, who've worked with Mark to get literary agents and publishers such as McFarland Books. You can also see reviews of Mark Malatesta from publishing industry professionals. These reviews of Mark Malatesta include his time as an author coach and consultant, literary agent, and Marketing & Licensing Manager for the well-known book/gift publisher Blue Mountain Arts.
