Taking it Home

We come to the last installment in the ten-part series, Booking it Along the California Coast: A Book Tour / Road Trip Across the Pacific Coast, serialized by Attics Books.


We’ve been to Los Angeles and San Diego, Hollywood and Santa Barbara. We made out in San Francisco and partied in Santa Barbara. We went for a nostalgic trip through Monterey, where I lived as a child, and San Jose, where I was born. We followed in the foots of John Steinbeck in Salinas, looking at old family photos in his boyhood home, spending time at the Steinbeck Center, and visiting locations both in East of Eden and from his own childhood.


With this installment, we come to the end of the journey. Join me in meeting Thomas Steinbeck, son of John Steinbeck and a great author in his own right, at Tecolote Books in Montecito. Richard Mineards, who covered the Royal Family for Britian’s Daily Mirror in a previous life, even covers my book event.


That, and a quick visit to college friend in LA, sends us back home.

Join us at the Atticus Books Blog.


http://atticusbooksonline.com/blog/2015/09/16/booking-it-along-the-california-coast-a-book-tour-road-trip-across-the-pacific-coast-9/

British Aristocracy, California Royalty, and Me

Richard Mineards has a distinguished career as a journalist. He covered the Royal Family for Britain’s Daily Mirror and Daily Mail before moving to New York to write for Star Magazine. He’s a regular on CBS, ABC, and CNN. After moving to Montecito (just outside Santa Barbara) about five years ago, he began covering the local celebrity scene.


When Thomas and Gail Steinbeck hosted me for a book event at Tecolote Books in Monteceto this past summer, Richard Mineards covered it in his weekly column for Montecito Journal.

Unfortunately, his column is print only, so I’m not able to share a copy here. In his weekly “Montecito Miscellany” column, Mineards wrote about Chris O’Donnell, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Paul Simon, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglass, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Drew Barrymore … and me!

“Author Eric Goodman is clearly on the right lines … his tome chronicles a single train journey from Baltimore to Chicago and the people on board, with each chapter about different characters, including a hitman, a Holocaust survivor, a former mobster, and a poet.

“Goodman is now finishing off his second work, Womb, he told me at a bijou launch bash at Tecolote, the lively literary lair in the Upper Village, hosted by his friends Thom and Gail Steinbeck.”

It was a brief five-paragraph bit in a celebrity column spanning several pages, but I was honored to be covered (in context with the Steinbecks) by someone used to covering Kings and Queens and Hollywood royalty.

Learn more about Richard Mineards at Montecito Journal.

www.montecitojournal.net/writers

Learn more about Thomas Steinbeck and his great work at his website.

www.ThomasSteinbeck.com

Thomas Steinbeck Reveals the Secret to Writing

Want to know the secret to writing? Thomas Steinbeck, son of Nobel Laureate successful author himself, wants to key you in.

Take a few minutes to watch this short, video; in less than three minutes you’ll have Steinbeck’s fiction formula.

Steinbecks’ secret is “the minimalist school” of writing. Don’t go to the desk to create. Go to the desk with the story already worked out in your mind, ready to report the story you already know.

“Let the audience do the reading,” advises Steinbeck. Good writing is a two-way street.

Drawing from his background as a journalist, Thomas Steinbeck covers the essential details: “Who, when, why, where what – you only cover those things in which the reader really needs the information in order to form picture for themselves.” What makes the book your own is that “you’ve decorated it” and your passion comes through.

Watch “The Secret to Writing” at  

http://thomassteinbeck.com/thomas-steinbeck-video-secret-to-writing/

Steinbeck Calls Tracks “Terrific”

Thomas Steinbeck may be writing in the shadow of a great cypress (Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck), but he also wrote In the Shadow of the Cypress. And Down to a Soundless Sea. Just this month, his third book of fiction, The Silver Lotus, was published by Counterpoint. With advance praise from Publisher’s Weekly and T.C. Boyle, the publisher sold out of the first print run within two days!


I’m honored to say that Steinbeck read Tracks — and liked it! In fact, he called Tracks “a terrific collection of stories.”


Steinbeck also wrote, “Short stories are often an under-appreciated art form. In Tracks, Eric D. Goodman takes the craft to the level of art. An exciting talent.”


Thomas Steinbeck knows a thing or two about writing good stories. His first book of fiction, Down to a Soundless Sea, was a collection of short stories.


Learn about Thomas Steinbeck and his books at his website.

http://www.thomassteinbeck.com/

Thomas Steinbeck Shares Fiction Tonight

Tonight is your opportunity to enjoy a reading and signing with the great Thomas Steinbeck. He will be reading and signing copies of his latest book, The Silver Lotus, which was published on 11/1/11 by Counterpoint Press.

The event takes place at the Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito (upper village) this Friday, November 4th from 5 to 7 p.m.

Learn more about this evening’s event at the event’s Facebook Page.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123468777762318

Learn more about Steinbeck’s new book at his website.

http://www.thomassteinbeck.com/Welcome.html