Mark Zaslove & Howard Kaplan: Emmy Winner & Spy Novelist!

Intro: Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what’s next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world’s great influencers, as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today, now here’s Tony DUrso.
Tony: Welcome I’m your host Tony DUrso, we interview world-class influencers, celebrities and elite entrepreneurs and I thank you for joining us. We broadcast every Friday at 1 p.m. Pacific on Voice America’s influencers Channel, and you can listen to all of our shows on your Android or Apple device go to TonyDUrso.com/mobile and get the app TonyDUrso.com/mobile. Today’s show is with Mark Zaslove and Howard Kaplan, Emmy winner and spy novelist, all right here’s some info on Marks Zaslove. He’s a two-time Emmy winner & recipient of the Humanities Prize, creates content for all the major studios: Disney, Universal, Paramount & Warner Brothers, welcome to the show Mark, it’s so great to have you.
Mark: Thanks Tony, it’s great to be here.
Tony: Mark I always have an extra pleasure in speaking with an author and in this case a screenwriter, an Emmy Award winner, a director producer goes on and on I am amazed the honor is mine to have you, such a privilege. And for our audience I guess let’s start here first things first Mark if you could all tell us, how did it all start for you what’s your backstory?
Mark: Ah backstory, well I started writing, well even before that the family is pretty creative. My father is an animator and a fine artist, he was head of drawing at Otis Art Institute, my mother aside from being a therapist taught music, I have a sister who’s a photographer, another a classical singer an opera singer and so I had to pick something they weren’t doing. So around ninth grade I picked writing, 10th grade I had a great English teacher who said I was a good writer and I did not believe her of course, and then I went to Berkeley in astrophysics and was writing a novel at the same time and writing screenplays with a buddy over the summers and decided to stick with writing, it was more fun.
Tony: Wise choice, look where it landed you.
Mark: Well you could argue the other way too who knows, alternate universe.
Tony: True and I do understand that you’re very good at astrophotography if I said that right?
Mark: Yes, ever since I was a kid I liked telescopes and used to do that as a kid and then eventually got out of the amateur side of it, went to school for the professional side and then a few years ago I got back into it. So I go up to the mountaintops once a month weather permitting and freeze or heat out depending and take pictures.
Tony: Very cool stuff. Mark back to Hollywood just a little bit and part of your backstory, you are a two-time Emmy Award winner, could you tell us what those Emmys are for?
Mark: Those Emmys were for Disney cartoon New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and there was Emmys and a Humanitas prize and a bunch of other things in New York that I don’t remember because they never sent me there for those, and I was fortunate enough to have a great show with great people and we did pretty good.
Tony: I’m very impressed, and again I want to accent this because I don’t want to gloss over it, you won the Humanitas or is it humanities prize?
Mark: Humanitas prize, it’s for I think uplifting human something or other in television and movies and the best part and I wanted to get it ahead of time, is they give you money for the prize so I was like young and wanted box and it was something to do, so I was fortunate enough again on that one.
Tony: That’s very impressive because when you think about writing uplifting human values in television and movies, you think is that even happened today is that even possible and yet it does happen and here it is.
Mark: Yes, it was a rather interesting group there were some interesting movies that were up and things there’s more than you think surprisingly, and they’re good programs and good movies when you look at them.
Tony: Yes, I would love to know a little bit more about this because in checking up your online bio, the way you got started in your authorship here is your bio says one day you got fed up of being told what to do I guess what to do in script writing and what’s interesting to me Mark is that with perhaps a great number of people while they’re trying to get into that industry, you’re getting up I’d like you to tell us and maybe take us into that world a little bit and explain why it’s perhaps oh not the piece of cake or the glamorous profession that we think it is or is it?
Mark: It’s what you make of it, I started out as a prose guy and I always thought I’d write scripts to sort of fund my novel writing and I got sidetracked by Ferraris and scotch and other fun things, and so I kind of got away from the prose after a while because it was just fun and people were paying me money and they were being nice to me and it was kind of great. And Hollywood is a wonderful experience at times but it’s a team sport, no matter what you see on the screen, television or movies it takes a lot of people, and everybody has their input and even if you’re just the writer your vision is never going to be the same and if you’re a writer director producer it’s still going to be dependent upon actors and your cinematographer. And so it’s fun but it’s not yours in the end, and then that’s not including the professional part where everybody’s giving you notes, and the thing that I got frustrated with is not so much the notes and even not that it isn’t completely mine, but there’s a structure there’s a particular structure to script writing.
And if you’re doing a movie it’s 90 to 100 pages and it’s got a first act, a longer second act and then a third act and the climax is here and the plot points are there, it’s a little like doing a mathematical formula and I was just getting frustrated by the structure and I got tired. I mean I’ve done hundreds of produced hours of film, TV that kind of stuff and after a while I just was like I had no freedom, and so I had done prose and it had been a long time because I was trying to be like great American novel when I was young, and I was reading a bunch of what was it, it was Robert Cray, Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiaasen and I was like wait a second I like these books and they’re well-written and I just thought why don’t I do one of these and next thing I knew I did this novel.
Tony: Very fascinating, I’m going to ask you a couple questions about that, but one thing just struck me as you were talking about this and I would love it if you could give the insider point of view as a professional, well-heeled scriptwriter perhaps that’s not the right word but you’ll understand.
Mark: I like that.
Tony: Oh well you’re very welcome, as when I read a fiction book especially and then I see the movie it’s always so different and I would love to know what’s the challenge in holding true to a storyline, and I’m not trying to find fault with any they’re great Lord of the Rings is a great case in point. It’s very different from the actual storyline and I understand there’s a challenge, but could you perhaps give us and draw some parallels on why that is and how that works that it has to be changed?
Mark: Well I think the key to remember, there’s a lot of reasons and people will say various things, but I found that almost inevitably a novel is too long to turn into a good movie simply by the fact that you don’t have enough screen time. I mean Kipling may be the greatest writer for the movies when you think of Jungle Book and Kim and the light that failed and Captain script and they were all novella lengths almost all of them. And when you look at the better Stephen King things they were the short stories, the plot and short stories and novellas are about the length that movie need, books speak some complicated multiple viewpoints, but what’s nice these days is it’s become a little bit more normal to do television series based on books, be they miniseries like Lonesome Dove which was a beautiful execution of that book or the Happen Leonard, the series that came out and they’re doing a third season I think if not a fourth, I forget where they are with it, but with a television series you have the time to expand on what a novel does.
So I think the biggest thing is just length, you don’t have enough time in a movie, I mean you got 90 minutes you just can’t put in all the nuance and the multiple viewpoints and the different plots so you end up having to cut stuff out which I think is insane, because then it’s like it’s not the same thing no matter what you do.
Tony: Or else just make it more movies; you know Lord of the Rings could be twenty movies or something like that.
Mark: I think totally, I think he did a great job with the first one fellowship of the ring.
Tony: It was absolutely hands-down, amazing that first movie was brilliant.
Mark: Yes, but then he started rewriting Tolkien and I’m not always for that but you got to do it better than the original writer and I wasn’t sure, at times he’d go off on tangents going wait why, you have this perfectly good plot going over here why not use that one, so it’s always dependent. I’d stick to the books but I guess it’s hard, like The Silmarillion I don’t know how you do that.
Tony: True, well thanks it is good to get another point of view from someone who’s in the rank and file and in the trenches doing it as to why and what challenges there are, what obstacles you face that it winds up not becoming per the actual book. I’ve actually heard some authors not authors, some movie stars say how they’ve tried very hard to get it heard the book and I’m thinking well why is it so hard not being a script writer myself, I now understand a little bit more of the challenges that face that, so I do appreciate that. And I have a burning question for you are you ready?
Mark: Sure.
Tony: Mark there’s a burning question when I went through everything for this I was thinking well, with the variety of work you’ve done, for probably every genre from Disney to the let’s call it the darker side of life that I won’t mention, here’s my burning question with all you’ve done with the whole range of ability that you have, what made you take an IRS agent for a series of thriller novels, I mean it works but how did that come about?
Mark: Well two things, one the inspiration came from an ex father-in-law who was an IRS agent and at some point he told me some stories, that whenever I hear something really truthful and interesting or just interesting I’ll like file it away in my brain somewhere, sometimes I jot down notes but you never know when a computer’s going to crash. So I had that in the back of my mind as oh that’s interesting, I didn’t know IRS agents would go out and collect things, like be a bit of a SWAT squad and go in and collect things when people wouldn’t pay, so that was one thing.
And then he told me another story about an IRS agent who was doing a routine check on something, and found some weird money ended up being mob money and ended up being killed for it, so these two little stories I didn’t know. And so when the time came to do this and as I said I wanted to do a fun one I stumbled upon the IRS, and I realized to do a really good series of suspense or action series it’s hard to get a new career path, because everybody’s a detective an ex-detective, a secret service guy, an ex-secret service guy everybody’s ex-military, it’s an ex-detective who was an ex-secret service guy whose now in this, it limits your choices of stories.
And when I stumbled upon the Mark Douglas character it was like wait a minute the IRS I can do rock and roll, I can do religion, I can do politics, I can do people who don’t pay taxes as we know who want to rebel against America because they feel it’s patriotic duty. So I can do anything whereas an LA detective, which there are great LA detective series but you’re limited and suddenly I went I can do anything, this is fantastic.
Tony: Very interesting, well let’s get into this bookmark and I’d like you to take us in and tell us more about it.
Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show, just ahead the chat continues with Mark Zaslove and Howard Kaplan Emmy winner and spy novelist, but first it’s time for us to take a short break, see you back here in just a moment.
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Intro: You’re listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers, we’d love to hear from you via email, be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@TonyDUrso.com, now back to Tony and his guests.
Tony: All right we’re back on the Tony DUrso show; today’s show is with Mark Zaslove and Howard Kaplan Emmy winner and spy novelist. Mark Zaslove, author of Death and Taxes, He’s a writer/director/producer of both live-action and animated movies and television. Mark also writes short fiction and has served as a senior editor on various magazines. All right and now back to the chat with Mark.
Tony: How can an IRS agent be a badass, because we all think today that a badass is a good guy in this day and age, are you working to mold public opinion make them look better, how do we get a badass IRS agent out of all this?
Mark: Well first off when I saw that these agents can go out and do this I was just having fun, and it turns out since the book came out in June I’ve had some IRS agents including one gentleman from Oregon who was really just funny dude and a very nice guy, he said no I know these people. And so it turns out they’re crazed, I even got audited once and had a very crazed but cool guy doing it and he was like a rock and roller, and he was in law school and so I was like all right we don’t suspect just how much they do that, so I thought let me just go with what I like.
And so my main character had certain capabilities and his friends were strange and there’s an old guy Harry who’s been around forever, and they’re all drinking at the end of the day and I went oh okay this is a good group. And then things happen and you realize that they’re not just tough guys for show, they actually have hearts and can get the job done, so that’s kind of where that came from.
Tony: I see, plutonium enriched cows, Mark how did you come up with this stuff and what is that anyway, a cow bomb?
Mark: You got to read the book but I mean I got a unique hit man named Juju Klondike and yes there’s plutonium being smuggled in cows, you don’t know want to know where they put it. There’s a Texas billionaire barbecue loving fetishes, who when you go there have it’s just a very strange situation and Mongolian mob and they’re run by women and my favorite character in the whole book is the main character discovers this dilapidated, deathbed, ex-Mexican police force drug sniffing dog, who his girlfriend ends up adopting and this dog his name El-Apoyo, the cabbage and there’s a long story of why the dog got that name. But it includes a hundred cartel killers in a field of cabbage and only the dog comes out alive, so he is my favorite character.
Tony: And we’re going to tell the audience, he’s a gun swallowing dog?
Mark: Yes, he does do that too, just a way to disarm someone including the person’s arm. But he’s just horrible old, it reminds me of my first dog homer is where it came from, the dog is just wheezing and disgusting but when the chips are down he smells, so that’s my favorite character in the book probably.
Tony: I love it, and I do understand that the audience if they go to MarkZaslove.com which I’ll spell. M-A-R-K-Z-A-S-L-O-V-E.com they can actually find out more about you and of course they can get the book.
Mark: Thank you yes they can and see a really horrible picture of me because I don’t photograph well, but what can we do.
Tony: And a very bloody cover of the book, death and taxes, I mean you can tell that there are a number of people that had their untimely end as a result of this.
Mark: And who really wants to do their taxes, so you know there’s blood involved.
Tony: I remember from the let’s call it the old days in the early 1900s, with the revenuers going out to collect and how that whole tax structure came in, because I don’t think taxes the way it is was for personal income tax was something in the 1800’s, this is right at the turn of the 20th century it was something that was instituted. And the people had to be indoctrinated and there are lots of stories of revenuers going out to collect and so forth, but this doesn’t happen back then does it?
Mark: No, this is modern day and the whole IRS thing I think that was 1913; yes sixteenth amendment of the US Constitution authorizing Congress to impose tax on income, so they didn’t even start till then. And the revenuers were really going after taxes on alcohol if I recall, so distilleries and stuff like that illegal ones and hence the entire car chases. Now it still goes on, but this is a group that will if you owe back taxes this was the part I didn’t know and they can come and take like your car, the government’s collection agency essentially it’s what some of these guys do.
Tony: Ouch that’s all I can say. Mark for those who are aspiring to become a writer we have them in our audience, can we give them a path, give them some good advice and wisdom on how to be successful in this field?
Mark: Successful or how to write better, they are two different things.
Tony: We’ll give them both advices.
Mark: Well successful two things, one whatever goals you originally have if you want to be a science fiction writer or you want to be a movie writer or whatever, stick to your goals and try not to be steered away too much. If what you love is writing novels like me, I got sidetracked I’m not unhappy I got sidetracked and I learned a lot and I’ve done some good work perhaps, but coming back to prose was like coming back home and so first do that and so second learn to write truthfully which is a complicated process, but that’s a big deal.
And then to be successful read everything watch every movie and television show you can, dissect things and really hone your craft. It’s not easy, I’ve written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things and I’m still learning constantly and that helps.
Tony: I understand, yes that helps quite a lot, thank you. And by the way as we mentioned earlier, death and taxes is the first in a series can you give us a preview of what’s to come?
Mark: The second book is called declare the pennies and our main characters are back Mark Douglas, has been in the first book his boss was killed which is the main thrust of that book, and so he’s taken her place and now he has to deal with all the bureaucracy. And at the same time he thinks she’s just dealing with a petty tax evasion which is someone is declaring a Peruvian hairless dog as a dependent, but it turns out to be like a political nuclear bomb when this liberal left-wing animal rights poster girl, who her husband is fingered in the murder of a right-wing, anti-choice bigwig.
And it just becomes complicated because the alibi of a kiss-cam at the Staples Center, and there’s seven-foot-tall MBA starting centers who like to dress up like Russian women’s Olympic gymnasts, there’s a Swedish heavy-metal folk band called lobsters on meth, that has to do with it a hemorrhoid shaft tycoon, with a niche in the worst possible way. 200 Nigerian social-networking conman who all have the same name toots l’amour and a partridge in a pear tree, neither of which are tax-deductible and so there’s a lot going on, plus an ex-girlfriend of his, his new girlfriend moving in and come to be armed exploding wombats, but that’s just a little of what’s going into it.
Tony: Oh my goodness Mark I know I’ve said this before, but how do you come up with this stuff that is beyond inventive.
Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show, just ahead the chat continues with Mark Zaslove and Howard Kaplan Emmy winner and spy novelist, but first it’s time for us to take a short break, see you back here in just a moment.
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Intro: You’re listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers, we’d love to hear from you via email be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@TonyDUrso.com, now back to Tony and his guests.
Tony: All right we’re back on the Tony DUrso show, todays show is with Mark Zaslove and Howard Kaplan Emmy winner and spine novelist, and now back to the chat with our guests.
Mark: Again a lot of what I’ve done is, well let’s say a good thirty percent of what I’ve done is family or children’s work and so you’re not allowed to do any of this, so I think it kind of just builds up and I just don’t let loose, because I can’t say any of those words if I’m doing something for Disney, so I think it’s just kind of boils up. But that’s the next in this series and I’m working on a couple of other novels as well and whatever it is I’m doing in television and movies.
Tony: Amazing, well knowing you from just this interview I can already tell that you’re going to come up with different genres, different items, different stories about very eclectic items it’s just fascinating the mind of a writer here and I appreciate you giving us a glimpse into your world, talking about your book. Once again Mark Zaslove Emmy Award winner and author of death and taxes, his website is MarkZaslove.com, did I get that right?
Mark: Absolutely, you’re the man.
Tony: Mark thanks again for spending some time with us, very what’s the word not inventive creative, fun, adventurous I love it thank you so much.
Mark: Oh thank you Tony thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.
Tony: And now we have Howard Kaplan join us. Howard Kaplan is a master spy novelist with one novel already a blockbuster movie: The Damascus Cover, which scooped over 4 awards so far. Welcome to the show Howard.
Howard: My pleasure, great to be here.
Tony: Howard it’s so great to have you, the last interview we did was so much fun, the Damascus cover, and by the way I’ve seen the preview and I’ve just got to say right off the cuff that movie is bad ass just love it, boy you did some good work there my friends.
Howard: Well we have some good actors Jonathan Rhys Meyers, John Hurt I was very lucky.
Tony: Yes they did good and I believe you have some more we’re going to talk about some of your books, your films and things but first things first for some of the newer audience Howard, I’d like to start here first how did it all start for you, what’s your backstory?
Howard: The most interesting thing that happened to me is when I was in college, I got involved with smuggling manuscripts out of the Soviet Union from Moscow to London, because the Communists wanted their hands on it and I brought some out on microfilm. And the second time I went to Russia when I was 22 I got arrested, and I was interrogated for four days but I have to say it was a very friendly interrogation, I got to take bathroom breaks, I got room service with better service than in the restaurant.
But when they expelled me at the end of four days, the sort of KGB guy came up to me in the departure lounge and he said we better not see anything about this in print because if we do we can find you anywhere in the world and next time we won’t be so to humanistic I remember that word humanistic, and I was 22 and I thought oh good I should start writing about this and that’s where it started.
Tony: Howard you’re such a troublemaker.
Howard: Well you know we didn’t tell my parents, we kept it a secret.
Tony: I’m impressed at how you kept your cool on that, I mean back then the Cold War with Russians and if they said to me back then don’t say anything about this because we’ll find you, I mean that’s quite a chilling threat.
Howard: I didn’t know I was young enough to be cocky, I don’t know that I would have but I must say I’ve never gone back to Moscow since, even with the new world I don’t want to take the chance, the world isn’t that changed.
Tony: That’s amazing, Howard there’s so much to go here I would like to know a little bit more about, you’re this college student, you’re a kid, you really haven’t seen the world or understood what’s going on why were you picked or were you just a great perfect cover to smuggle manuscripts in microfilm?
Howard: I was on my junior abroad in Jerusalem at the Hebrew university and what they were doing was looking for American kids, who could go to Moscow on their way home and looked like they were just regular tourists. And my mother had been in the concentration camp, my mother has been in auspice, survived obviously and I always felt the world didn’t do enough to help those people, the world doesn’t do enough to help a lot of people we have the same terrible tragedy in Syria right now and I decided I wanted to do something. And I got approached while a student to join a group of people who are training to go into Moscow and I said I want to do it and I did.
Tony: You’re brave Howard, very brave.
Howard: Maybe.
Tony: And here you are you’ve written a number of novels, the one we just spoke about is Damascus cover and is there any new news on that and then we’ll just kind of go over some of your other books as well.
Howard: Yes, the film is actually both available for rental in all the various rental and video-on-demand, and it’s also on Hulu November 21st, I’m not sure exactly when your show will air but it sounds like around that time maybe.
Tony: Oh yes this will be out before then, absolutely.
Howard: Yes, so it’s rentable now and in fact a cousin at a birthday party for my father for his hundredth birthday on Sunday told me he just watched it on a plane, so it’s findable. The book itself helps clarify the film; a lot of people have told me it makes the film clear it’s available on eBook, paperback and on audible.
I got a big narrator for audible, I have the most famous narrator George Guildhall in narration, he’s done more books than anyone and someone just wrote me today and said they bought the audible book because George Guildhall was doing the narration, I don’t know if they wanted the book or they just wanted him but it didn’t matter to me.
Tony: That is so cool and once again to everyone check the book called The Damascus Cover and at least see the movie. Howard how true is the movie to the book, how true is the story or are they very different?
Howard: You know it changed somewhat and people have served a little bit of mixed feelings about that because the book is about a sort of aging spy, who’s a little bit at loose ends in the book he’s in his mid-fifties, late fifties mid-50s, well because it’s Hollywood they cast Jonathan Rhys Meyers who is 40 today, I think he was 38 when they started shooting, so it’s a different concept. Now he is both a fabulous human being from the tutors, from Bend It Like Beckham, from match point, the Woody Allen film very passionate, but by being 15 years younger than the character in the book it gave it a different flavor.
So something’s were better because of it, I think he has tremendous chemistry with the co-star Olivia Thirlby who was just in Chappaquiddick, this recent film but it doesn’t have the kind of meet in a certain way of the novel but that’s usually the case when books go to film of the what an older man was feeling as he was falling apart. So there are some changes, but overall I love the film and I love the book so I’m a happy guy.
Tony: Well there you go. Now this book is actually a series, we’re going to talk about some of your other books and correct me if I say the name incorrect I’m going to try my shot, the hero of the story the lead character Shai Shaham?
Howard: Right, that’s perfect.
Tony: Oh very good.
Howard: Actually now written over a period of 25 or 30 years, three novels with the same two characters, they’re all independent maybe they’re stand-alone in the lingo of the book business you can read any of them and it’s with Shai Shaham an Israeli spy and you were certainly getting to Ramsey Awad who is a Palestinian. And what I think this makes my books distinctive is that I’m getting very good reviews both in the Arab press and in the Israeli press and in the mainstream press, because I’m very even-handed about showing who these people are, their strengths, their weaknesses without a bias towards one and that’s the hallmark of this work.
Tony: Howard I want to compare this for the audience so they have a good understanding, I know it’s a very unique story it’s very different from just about anything that I’ve seen or read or watched out there, and this Shai Shaham well he’s a legendary Mossad field agent, he’s this badass. Just so the audience understands because when we think of a spy of course unfortunately the stereotype is James Bond, so for the audience can you separate him out what makes him different better or worse or weaknesses and strengths and so forth?
Howard: I’ll tell you what the first thing that comes to mind when I say this is all my spies are married and at the end have families, they’re not these loners who are sitting in a bar, being hit on by the gangly gorgeous Italian woman who’s really a Russian spy, they are people who are struggling with both the Palestinians and the Israelis, how to have a marriage, how to have children in some places grandchildren. Ramsay Awad does not have children it turns out that he and his wife are unable to, so I’m struggling more with how does a marriage and a family function when the husband is both gone so often and in such dangerous work, and the wife often doesn’t know where he is and is worried, and what happens when they have children.
So that would be kind of the hallmark in terms of his own personal characteristics, Shai is very obsessive, he used to smoke all the time and he’s kind of a tough guy so when he decides not to smoke for a year and a half he carries around a pack of cigarettes in his pocket to show himself that he can get away with not smoking. He doesn’t drink alcohol at all because as a youngster in university he fell in love with a girl, she left and he was drunk for a year so now he doesn’t drink, and these guys are more mental trackers and field agents and detectives and people who un-thread a puzzle than they are guys getting in big fights. Although Shai secretly trains on the firing range and nobody knows it, because he’s a little overweight because he wants to be competitive and in one of the books to destroy Jerusalem it becomes very important.
Tony: That’s very interesting, you’ve taken a spy and made him very let’s call it normal where he can fit in and is unobtrusive.
Tony: This is the Tony DUrso show, just ahead the chat continues with Howard Kaplan, but first it’s time for us to take a short break see you back here in just a moment.
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Intro: You’re listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers, we’d love to hear from you via email be sure to send questions and comments to Tony@TonyDUrso.com, now back to Tony and his guests.
Tony: All right we’re back on the Tony DUrso show; this segment of today show is with Howard Kaplan. Howard lived in Israel and traveled extensively through Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. At the age of 21, he was sent on a mission into the Soviet Union to smuggle a dissident’s manuscript on microfilm to London. His first trip was a success. On his second trip…he was caught and interrogated. And now back to the chat with Howard.
Tony: People wouldn’t be able to put it together as opposed to the James Bond guy flying all over the world, doing whatever.
Howard: Yes, it’s almost supposed to be the opposite so that they will blend in and people won’t be stuck on an idea of who he is, and family I guess is an important notion to me and I wanted to explore how these spies function in a family, rather than alone.
Tony: That makes good sense and I’m going to get back to the writing, but one thing in your updated bio that caught my attention which I think is separate from your book writing that we’re going to talk about in your books; you tutor young women writers in Gaza?
Howard: Yes, it actually turns out not to be separate from the book and my new novel, the spies gamble which has Cheyenne Ramsey in 2016 and 2017 I’ll tell you about it in the novel then I’ll tell you how I got to it. Ramsay is in all the books a famous Palestinian writer, so he’s now retired, he’s older or they think he’s retired, Cheyne needs help so he goes to him and Ramsay is teaching a course at UCLA, I used UCLA so I could walk around and describe because I’m here in Los Angeles. And Ramsay teaches a short story, that is actual real story that a young woman writer of mine in Gaza wrote about her experience of being landlocked in Gaza and never being able to leave, and how her girlfriend got out to go to Jerusalem because she had a bad medical emergency and they couldn’t treat it in Gaza.
And in this modern world the question is how do I tutor these people over Skype, it’s generally done over Facebook and Skype and they send me drafts of stories, I edit them then we talk on the phone or whatever you want to call it it’s not a telephone over Skype, then they rewrite them and they publish them. They have an organization called we are not numbers, it’s a Palestinian organization that puts tutors together with these young writers, I think the writers have to be under 30 because that’s just their mandate to work with young people, and I have four or five of them who suddenly every once in a while I get an email usually it’s on Facebook, it’s a message it says I have a new story will you look at it and it’s a real delight that I was thrilled and I got this woman’s permission her name is Venus she lives in Gaza City, to use her real name and to use her real story so she was excited, we were a little worried that a book wouldn’t get to her, but I’d mailed it to her and she got it.
Tony: That is so cool Howard, and what is the purpose of this organization is it to place them, give them jobs, give them work where does it go?
Howard: Well I think it’s anything that can help with, for example I had one student who was writing an application for a job with the International Red Cross and she wanted me to look at the application and critique it. I think it’s partly too or greatly to help to teach them to express the tragedy of their lives and the difficulty of what living in Gaza is like, Gaza is 25 miles long, 5 miles wide it’s blockaded by the Israelis on the ocean by the Egyptians on the south and they can’t get out.
So what we’re trying to teach them is to write without sloganeering, without using words like fascists and Zionist and whatever, but just to express the experience of their life, what is it like for this girl who dreams to go to Jerusalem and her girlfriend gets to go and then she sees another thing, she’s on Facebook and she has some friends who are Americans who are suddenly in the West Bank in Bethlehem traveling around and they come from wherever Los Angeles or Washington, and here she is 50 miles away and she’s not allowed to go, what is that like for her. So that’s what we’re trying to express I think it’s a little political, but it’s also greatly personal for these people to get their thoughts and feelings out.
Tony: I like that Howard it gives them hope and it gives them purpose, gives them fulfillment and if you put it there we can change the world based on what we the majority the people really want, we can make changes and so that’s really good, very cool on that.
Howard: No I think it’s great and as I say they really get the idea that they have to drop this dramatic political language in favor of personal expression, what it really feels like for them. So you can do a lot of work you know then there’s a lot of improvement in their work. A lot of them who wants to apply for the Iowa Writers Program, Writers Workshop and I’ll write recommendations I’m happy to do that.
Tony: I like that very cool Howard. Now just earlier we mentioned a couple of books, so for our audience we have the Damascus cover we talked about that, what’s the next book that’s out?
Howard: Okay, the three books that comprise a kind of independent series the first one is Bullets of Palestine, the second one is called To Destroy Jerusalem and the third one is the one we mentioned The Spies Gamble they were not published in that order, but that’s the order chronologically. I published Bullets of Palestine first which is the oldest, then the Spies Gamble which is current time then I went back and wrote another book, it’s even more recent called To Destroyed Jerusalem and set it in between the other two books, it’s like a prequel to the Spies Gamble and that’s the to Destroy Jerusalem book it’s interesting.
The original title of that book was the 11th plate, my literary agent and one of my good friends said they liked that title and I told my son who’s 25, he says Dad everybody in my generation is going to fall asleep at that title, because I came up with this to Destroy Jerusalem and he says that’s what you should use because that’s what the book is about and that’s what will get attention, so I went with my son’s instinct.
Tony: Interesting, Howard is that Jerusalem story something set in the future, the past or modern times?
Howard: No the past, its set actually in 1990 because in the late 80s there was what’s called the First Intifada, the first Palestinian uprising in Israel where there was a general strike for actually almost seven years in the West Bank. Highly organized committees, medical committees, public service and I’d been in Israel at that time and I had notebooks of notes about that strike, so I went back since I had Cheyenne Ramsey in first 1987 and then in 2017 and I went back and I chose 1990 because of the color of this first and very powerful Palestinian uprising called the First Intifada. As I say those books can be read in any order they’re all completely separate stories those three.
Tony: And we have the same key characters in those three stories?
Howard: Right in those three stories, not in the Damascus cover the only overriding character that goes through all the books although not exactly all of them is the character that John Hurt plays in the Damascus cover film, the head of the Israeli Secret Service but he has passed away by time the Spies Gamble comes about and I think he’s already put out to pasture by to Destroy Jerusalem but he’s a central character in Bullets of Palestine, but unfortunately we’ve lost John Hurt so they never filled them, it’ll be like the Harry Potter movies some of the actors died they had to replace them.
Tony: Yes understand. Howard some authors go for incredible realism, they take real events, real places and of course they’ll put the fictional characters in, how much would you say is true of your stories or is there even a way to gauge the realism as opposed to the fiction?
Tony: Yes, it’s a really good question because I’m one of those people who does that a lot, and in fact as some people were reading the spies gamble they said these events just happened I don’t know if the inks dried yet. So I often moved characters particularly in Bullets of Palestine and particularly in the Spies Gamble through actual events.
And to Destroy Jerusalem I’m going through actual events of the Palestinian uprising, but the story is less so but I like to do that, people seem to like it too there’s a lot of history in my books I’d like to try to spoon feed it to people in a way that’s palatable but those are some of the things that people like. But again particularly in the spies gamble, well even Bullets of Palestine one of the Arab reviewers said there’s so much realism in it it’s hard to remember that it’s a book of fiction, so I like that it’s a big part of what I do.
Tony: That’s very cool and I think that’s part of why so many people can zone into your book because there’s so much realism in there, I really like that that’s very cool on that. And the latest one The Spies Gamble is that one of about a possible there’s a nuke that’s stolen or missing or whatever?
Howard: No that’s actually to destroy Jerusalem, so that’s what the potential destruction of Jerusalem is. In that book has the theft of nuclear weapons and it also has, I haven’t actually publicized this yet, but it has a very large subplot of Christian evangelicals who are in Jerusalem and some of them are proselytizing and what’s like for them to proselytize, and what the whole Christian evangelical feeling is about Israel.
I was fortunate, I taught creative writing at UCLA and I had for like a long time, I had in my class a Christian evangelical very interesting guy who had I remember Bible verses on his business card and I’ve lost the business card I’m terribly upset about that because it was fun. And I sat with him we had lunch a few times and he taught me a lot of things that went into To Destroy Jerusalem about that book.
Tony: Interesting, well I hope he hears this interview or finds out about your work and reaches back out to you.
Howard: Yes it does happen. The Spies Gamble plot is about the Israelis getting a new stealth submarine in Norfolk Virginia and the Prime Minister who serves a right-winger, going on a celebratory ride as they take over the stealth submarine and then the submarine disappears. And so the novel is really about trying to find the submarine and the Prime Minister and not knowing who captured it, it’s a stealth sub so they can’t find it too easily, is it the Russians who wanted to see the American technology, is it the Russians and the Palestinians working together because it’s a right-wing prime minister or is it somebody else. So that’s part of the mystery of the spies gamble and the title refers to the gamble for peace, that somebody is taking a gamble to make this whole thing work out in a way that furthers peace in the region, more than that I can’t reveal.
Tony: Very interesting. Well audience you’re just going to have to wait for that book and check it out, and I understand all your books people can find out about your books at HowardKaplanauthor.com is that right?
Howard: That’s exactly right.
Tony: And Howard if someone wants to reach out to you and whatever, can they contact you through that site?
Howard: You know I’m not sure, supposedly I have a contact through that site but I’ve never had anybody contact me. The easiest way to contact me is through Facebook, if you message me on Facebook I answer whoever it is because it’s easy and I’m at the computer all the time, so that’s what I would recommend to get the quickest response from me.
Tony: And they can find you on Facebook as Howard Kaplan?
Howard: Exactly, and I have two pages I have a regular page and I also have a Howard Kaplan author page. But you can find me also if you look up any of the books on Amazon; they’re direct links I think to the Facebook page too. So it’s not hard to find me there even though the name is a little bit common.
Tony: Very good, well I think that’s going to be the way people are going to reach out to you and I hope that person that you lost touch with comes back around. Meanwhile Howard you’re very successful at being a writer and author, you’re mentoring people in Gaza, what would you say what advice can you give those aspiring to write fiction as well as nonfiction, is there any wisdom or guidance that you can give them?
Howard: Something I see a lot is these days and I wrote a piece about this for a writing magazine, that young writers are spending too much time particularly on Twitter because they have the idea that before even they’re published or ready they need to start to create a following, and I think that’s a mistake. I think that followings are hard to come by and they’re not going to come from tweeting, I think I ended that piece by saying write more and tweet less.
There’s a book that I would recommend called Writing to Sell by Scott Meredith, who was a famous literary agent in the 50s and 60s, he was Norman Mailer in Arthur C. Clarke agent, and he says when we say writing to sell we’re not talking about gimmicks we’re talking about how to construct a plot and a story that works. He decided to write the book after, he got so many first novels he couldn’t sell he decided to write this book about how to write a novel and I read it before I wrote the Damascus cover and it was enormously helpful.
Tony: Well very good, thank you so much for that advice, very appreciated. Once again Howard Kaplan you’re the author of Damascus Cover, To Destroy Jerusalem and The Spies Gamble and again that Damascus Cover that is so good, I highly recommend people to check that out.
Howard: Thank you so much Tony.
Tony: Howard once again thank you and we look forward to more spine-tingling, chilling thrillers, spy thrillers from you.
Howard: Okay, well I’ll try to behave myself.
Tony: All right, thank you again and for my amazing audience thanks so much for listening. Remember: Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Be Righteous. Join me on the next episode of The Tony DUrso show.
Outro: We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of the Tony DUrso show with his key influencers, be sure to tune in again next Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern time, 1 p.m. Pacific time on The Voice America Influencers Channel.