Daniel Damiano's Blog

Many will say that writing a play, not to mention a story or a novel, takes a lot - and it does. It takes talent, focus and inspiration, and maybe some other things too boring to mention here. But for anyone who has been writing plays for a while, and I admittedly have, the most challenging element is the aftermath of a play's composition. Yes, you have it written and maybe can put up a staged reading, as I often do with my indy theatre company in NYC - but then what? That is the perpetual rub of a playwright. Where can this thing that has taken months to write live as a produced work for a paying audience? Cutting through the subjectivity of theatre company interns, literary managers and artistic directors, the latter who decide what gets produced, is one of the greatest and most seemingly arbitrary challenges a playwright can face. In the end, as much pride as one may take in their work, it rarely seems to translate to ubiquitous productions - not because a work isn't deserving, but more often simply through a lack of good fortune.

Now of course bad luck can sound reductive, I understand, but when you think of the process a play goes through, and the various pairs of eyes that must read it, it becomes clear (at least after years of doing this) that it really does take a certain amount of divinity - the right play getting before the right set of eyes that manages to read a play past 10 pages (even making it to the end), who then passes it on to another who manages to get past 10 pages (even making it to the end), all the way to the mountaintop, that of an artistic director's greenlight. For a play to make it through this circuitous route at the average theatre company, culminating in a production, is certainly a more impressive feat than the act of simply writing a play - because if a tree falls in an empty forest, who will hear?

Of the three plays contained in PLAYS BY DANIEL DAMIANO, my first play collection, only one was actually a cold submission which resulted in a mainstage World Premiere within a year of my submission. Yes, this is indeed rare. The second play, THE GOLDEN YEAR was produced through a company I was a member at, in which case I got to present it as a reading , which generated fairly quick interest. In other words, there was no submitting the play cold to anyone and the risk of a reader's subjectivity. THE DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE OF PRIVATE PITTS was, with a certain pride that I am happy to take, a production from my own company which I would go on to establish a year prior with my wife. It of course involved raising money and taking the reins as a producer to empower myself as a playwright, especially when I was feeling that this was the time to produce such a play, and not wanting to wait further for its acceptance elsewhere.

As of this writing, and its Sept 5th, 2022 publication, these three plays have each had a sole production, which admittedly disappoints me. But at the same time, I know that I just haven't had the good fortune of getting these plays in front of the right eyes at the right time beyond the houses of their World Premieres.

On the upside, I am thrilled to have this first collection of produced work to share, not only for my posterity as a playwright, but with hope that with its existence in published form, it will incur further interest and, most especially, future productions. But, of course, that's out of my hands. I don't want to produce every play that I write, and I shouldn't have to. I instead choose to believe, and to hope, that for as long as Theatre exists, and admittedly its long-term existence often now strikes me as tenous, that there are actors, young and old, women and men, and of varying cultural backgrounds, who would love to bring these plays to life.

For now, I simply hope that you enjoy reading them.

As I've noted previously, I consider myself to be an artist and not a publisher - but necessity sometimes guides our hand. That said, despite the arduousness of the past year and a half, I am quite proud to say that fandango 4 Art House, my wife and I's Brooklyn-based Theatre/Arts company, managed to publish not only my debut novel in the Spring of this year, THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, but, as of September 6th, 2021, my collection of poetry - 104 DAYS OF THE PANDEMIC. The latter consists of poems composed daily between March 19th through June 30th, 2020.

This collection was one of several self-imposed assignments I gave myself in a year that will largely live in infamy, but I feel this one, in particular, was an interesting catharsis. About a week into our city's shutdown, I somehow felt that it would be interesting to write a poem a day based on either what was happening in the city, the world or a personal trigger from my own life, be it present or past. The result is a poetic diary of sorts that, while touching upon much of what was going on in the world and in me at the time, is more of a historical time capsule from the perspective of a Brooklyn resident watching his environment change, as well as the impact a virus could have - not only physically but socially and politically.

Obviously, these are things still very much in the air, while a considerable majority of this country remains unvaccinated - many of who, regardless of age or health status, sadly seem to resist for reasons of political alignment.

My goal was to leave these poems intact from how I wrote them on the day. So, aside from an excised line or two, what you will see in this collection is pretty much what came out on the noted day (all poems are dated too). This was also a challenge in that I had to resist revisions, which are normally a natural course of the writing process, especially when it goes into publication.

But that self-imposed restriction aside, I feel the collection is a potent, sometimes amusing and often emotional journey of 104 days from the perspective of a New York-based artist...and now publisher.

I look forward to sharing this with you.

Admittedly, everything I have learned, with specific regards to producing my work in Theatre to now designing and marketing my first novel, THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, has come out of necessity more so than a burning desire. The desire, as exists with many artists, has always lied in creating and, at least for me, that's why I've been knee deep in the creative world.

Going into this particular venture, that of marketing my novel, I have tried to be as open as I can to learning about how to widen the wingspan of a book that I feel (in all modesty) it deserves. For one, this was not published by a big name publisher. No, this was published by fandango 4 Art House. Sounds pretty reputable, yes? Well, I'd like to think so, even if fandango 4 Art House is actually my own theatre/arts education company that we elected to expand to publishing in order to release this book. And while I take a lot of pride in the fact that we made it happen, it nevertheless has put a considerable onus on myself to do the legwork of, as the blog title indicates - getting it out there!

Part of it, of course, was creating a cover design that I felt served the tone of the book and was eye-catching. Following that was a synopsis (ever the devil to many writers) that served the book well enough. Then it was (and still is) about getting the ball rolling - sending paperback copies to friends and family and encouraging them (only if they liked it) to write reviews and tell folks. But it appears that the most important step is the one I'm at now: the unknown. Or more accurately, getting more people that I do not know to read this book and, ideally, spread the word. Yes, folks - it really does take a village.

This week, I concluded two ebook giveaways (for Goodreads and a smaller one through Voracious Readers Only). I set these up with a specific desire to accrue a larger readership for THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, and I am glad that I pursued both avenues. While it is too early to tell how impactful the results of these will be, it certainly brought the book before the eyes of people who knew nothing about it before. For the Goodreads Giveaway, 100 folks won ebook copies and 472 put it on their To-Read lists. Now how soon any of these lovely people will read the book is anyone’s guess – yes, I have noticed that many folks on Goodreads have To-Read lists that are into the tens of thousands. But I still think it was wise to do it. For the latter giveaway, it was free and reached 22 people (the max was 20) who specifically requested the book – and some have already read it and graciously given the book a lovely review, to which I am certainly thankful.

The next and, to date, biggest step will be expanding the distribution of the book to a larger platform that will allow greater retail access for the book. In other words, the upcoming move is expressly designed to make it more accessible for book stores (and maybe one near YOU) to carry it on their shelves, even though it’s listed on a variety of sites, aside from Goodreads and Amazon.

This blog post might be less interesting to some, as it is, admittedly, more designed for like-minded indy-authors who may have their own concerns about hitting a glass ceiling with selling their books. But to those of you to whom this post most applies, I hope this has been helpful in some way.

Stay well and stay creative.

While we're a little over a month into the initial release of THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, I'm nevertheless happy to extend that you can now enter to win a free ebook version through Goodreads until May 14th.

Of course, whether you are one of the hundred winners or not, I do hope that it is at least of interest enough to add to your reading list.

Stay well and stay creative.

Yeah, there's some deja vu here: I've created something that I'm very proud of, then asked myself - now what? Frankly, as a professional playwright for over two decades, I have never known when, where or even if my plays would find a home. It is, quite simply, the writer's gamble. We write because we love the act of writing; the creating; the artistry that it requires; the catharsis. But then there are the components of the business that an artist can never fully control - the business part. As a playwright, unless you want to self-produce everything that you write, you are at the mercy of many elements which dictate whether your play will have a life in performance, and possibly enhance your career in some way, or not. It comes down to the subjectivity of who is at the other end.

And yet, now I've subjected myself to another realm of artistic ambiguity: what happens after writing my first novel?

THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT was released earlier this month. Of course, as with any novelist, the goal was to give first crack to literary agents, see if any would be interested enough to read it and, if so, hope they would be interested in representing me and, if so, would then ideally generate interest with a nice publishing house who could then give me some money and, of course, aid significantly in the marketing of the book. But as many in the industry know, and admittedly I did going in; such a glorious route is as easy to obtain as coming upon the Dead Sea Scrolls in your freezer.

I managed to incur, out of over 70 queries I sent out, not one request to read the manuscript. I gathered why, of course – and there are several reasons I can readily assume: my novel wasn’t in a hip genre (Horror, Sci-Fi, True Crime, Young Adult), nor was it sexy (fill in the obvious titles here), nor did it have the “killer hook” that is as sought after by agents as it is by Hollywood producers. It’s, quite simply, a journey of a Long Island wife, mother and literature teacher whose life is turned upside by the shocking arrest of her husband, which leads her on a funny and harrowing nomadic journey, ultimately returning her to her unsettling roots in a remote Jersey town.

This is not considered a “sexy” or “killer” hook by the industry. But it is a quick summation of what THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT is about. It is a novel about a modern woman and the many herculean obstacles she faces which challenge her sanity, while inadvertently building her character. It is a novel that contains nuance that is simply not able to be conveyed in a caption or synopsis. And while modern novels with multi-dimensional heroines do not appear to be in surplus, even in 2021, it was little surprise to me that the route to THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT becoming published would lead back to me.

And so, venturing back to the title of this blog post, this becomes yet another example of how IT TAKES MORE THAN WRITING. That said, I am thrilled that my wife and I’s theatre and arts education company, fandango 4 Art House, could be used as a publishing outlet for my first novel.

Today, we are just two weeks into selling it in ebook and paperback, as we continue to think of ways to market this piece to the world. All the while, we wait, while others read, and hope that word of mouth soon goes from a whisper to a caterwaul...as the weeks go by.

Well, you've got to read the book to really get any sort of satisfactory answer, of course. I will say, and admittedly with bias, that I think Peggy is the type of character we don't often see in modern literature, which is not to say that she is all that unique, at least on the surface. She is a wife. She is a mother. She is a woman who had certain aspirations and is in the process of resuming those aspirations at the start of THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT. Yet things occur which send her resurfaced trajectory off the rails, and, through her attempts at survival, she comes to question her own character. The many existential queries start to follow suit; Who am I? What could I have changed to alter where I am now? Yet these questions do not sit in the air waiting to be answered, because Peggy has little time to dwell on them. Like many, she struggles with reinvention and survival, and finding a purpose to continue surviving through the many absurdities of life.

I am tremendously excited to be releasing my debut novel, THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, tomorrow (March 15th) and sharing it with the world.

This novel, unlike the many plays I've written in my career, has been a particular journey. As I'm sure is not unusual for many who have written books, it was started, put aside, returned to, put aside, returned to... And then with the onset of the pandemic, and the considerable amount of downtime that it brought, there became no excuse to not pick up where I left off and see it to its end.

I hope the results of my work will be pleasurable to the reader - but, if nothing else, I can say that this is very much the novel that I intended. It's a character piece, first and foremost, not unlike what drives my plays. In this case, it is the formidable Peggy Bubone whom we follow - a wife, mother and teacher who is just beginning to regain a semblance of her former ambitious self before the rug is pulled out from under her and forces her to deal, as never before, with the basic struggle for survival in a quick-to-ostracize world. It is as timely a theme as there is, I feel, but one that is digestible through a character who has humor, flaws, vulnerability and intelligence.

It takes one person to write a book, but a village to make it a success. Therefore, if you enjoy it, don't be shy about spreading the word. Online reviews help, book club discussions, et al.

All that said, I hope you enjoy THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT.

I'm thrilled to announce that my debut novel, THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, will be available in Ebook and Paperback on March 15th.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

Here's some advance reviews;

"Daniel Damiano has written an extraordinary novel. The Woman in the Sun Hat takes us on a journey from start to finish that not only invites us into the world of the protagonist Peggy Bubone, but helps us to inhabit that world with her in all its sometimes uncomfortable, emotionally challenging, earthy and ultimately invigorating glory." - Notes from the City

"Daniel Damiano's stirring first novel not only creates a gripping tale of family disaster and deception, but he also takes on many myths of our modern life. - The Woman in the Sun Hat is a novel imprinted by a distinguished voice and led by a heroine memorable for both the ordinariness and super strength of her resolve." - Sunday's Mail