Ask the Author: Peter Lance
Answered Questions (5)
Peter Lance
When I started my career as a cub reporter for The Newport, RI Daily News - a summer job for which I earned $50.00 a week - the town was buzzing with rumors that Doris Duke, 3rd richest woman in the world, had gotten away with murder and "bought off the town" after killing Eduardo Tirella, who had been her principal art curator and designer, in an auto crash outside the gates of Rough Point, her Bellevue Avenue estate. At the time I lacked the skill or time to investigate, but starting in 2018 after I saw a replay of then Pres. Trump's boast that he could "shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue" and not lose any votes, I decided to go back and work the case. It took me two years to prove that Doris killed Eduardo with intent, then conspired with the local police to cover it up. The story turned out to be Shakespearean in dimensions in that she crushed him to death just moments after he told her he was leaving her employ to return to Hollywood where his design career was amping up. He was 42 years old and has just finished the design work for THE SANDPIPER starring Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. He was halfway through a new a film starring his close friend Sharon Tate. So, in effect Doris Duke killed Eduardo on "the night before the rest of his life." If you visit peterlance.com you'll see that the cover up continues.
Peter Lance
Producing a podcast based on the true crime story in HOMICIDE AT ROUGH POINT and working on adapting the book as a scripted dramatic series for streaming/cable.
Peter Lance
Write every day, then rewrite the next day what you wrote the day before. But not severely. Just an initial pass -- if you are writing a book -- until the entire first draft is finished. Don't be too hard on yourself and never give up. If you have self-doubt, like we all have from time to time or even writer's block, just go back and read some of your earlier work and that will give you the confidence you need to press on. Most importantly ENJOY the process.
Peter Lance
It's an opportunity, whether your write fiction or non-fiction to offer an interpretation of life as you have come to know it. I'm a reporter by trade, so in the case of my latest non-fiction book, HOMICIDE AT ROUGH POINT, it was a chance for me to go back to my hometown after more than 50 years and crack a murder case. Beyond that initial true crime story which I first reported in Vanity Fair in the summer of 2020, the book turned into a memoir of growing up in Newport, RI, one of the most remarkable small cities on earth. So for me, it became a journey of self discovery.
Peter Lance
THE BIG GOODBYE: Chinatown and The Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson and MADE MEN: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny
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