I have loved being in a writer’s group here in Las Vegas. Sin City Writers has introduced me to a lot of excellent writers. We support each other, especially when their work gets out in the world. That brings me to my buddy… well the name doesn’t matter because his first book is out under his nom de plum R H Bird. He writes YA fiction, which is usually anathema to me. But his stuff is funny and worth checking out.
We talked about his novel, Promposal. Don’t let the cover fool you, it’s not just about a girl who wants to go to prom, although it is. The main character is a male wrestler who’s trying to navigate high school in the late 80s. It’s hysterical.
So, RH (ahem) tell us about yourself.
After graduating with a degree in Business Administration from Oswego State, I did what every college graduate in the New York area did, I tried getting a job in Manhattan. I had three offers, a construction supplies firm, a transportation company, and one as a stockbroker. The movie Wall Street came out when I was in college, and that career sounded the most fun and exciting.
After a few years, my firm promoted me to Branch Manager of the Honolulu office, luckily, my wife and I were already big scuba divers. Later, they brought me back to New York as a senior executive. I arrived in my Aloha shirt during a blizzard that shut the City down for days. My lifestyle went from 82-degree weather to 28-degrees.
The cover is a bit misleading. What’s Promposal about?
Promposal, combines timeless teenage angst with the eternal drama surrounding senior prom, and adds a ticking clock to the mix to create a fast-paced and relatable story of high school romance, regret, and redemption. In morning detention, high school wrestling star, Luca Esposito is horrified to discover that his ex-girlfriend, Piper Kraft, is about to voluntarily relinquish her chance of attending John Marshall High School’s senior prom of 1990 solely because he’s an idiot. A big idiot. Huge idiot. But self-berating can wait until later, because he only has six class periods to fix things and give Piper the senior prom of her dreams. Sounds simple, but to achieve his goal, Luca must navigate through a fight during lunch with the school’s star quarterback, a trip to the principal’s office, an attempted apology (his!) that spectacularly backfires, and find his ex-girlfriend that’s better at avoiding him than Ferris Bueller is at avoiding Principal Rooney; not to mention getting egged by ski mask-wearing jerks on the way to prom, and a ride-or-die brawl between the wrestlers and football players in the parking lot at prom. Yeah, Luca is having one of those days for sure, but hopefully a day he’ll always remember – if he can just survive it. The fast pace, fully developed characters, and genuine emotions presented makes Promposal one of the most exciting and satisfying YA novels of the year.
You’re a middle-aged straight dude. Where’d the idea for a YA romance come from?
The idea for the story came about during a writing retreat, called the Ink Drop Space. The prompt the writing coach gave us was – For the next ten minutes write about something you accidentally overheard.
We must have been discussing high school because detention came to mind. I imagined a junior overhearing in first period detention that his ex-girlfriend, who’s a senior, is selling her tickets to that night’s senior prom. They broke up ten months ago and haven’t spoken since. He spends the rest of the period agonizing about what to do. The breakup was his fault, and she can’t stand him for it. He’d love to take her, but is afraid of being rejected. He’s not sure he has the courage to face her in the hallway.
Even if he can convince her to go, tonight’s the prom. How could they possibly find a dress, rent a tux, buy flowers, get her hair and makeup done, and hire a limo in a few short hours?
I read that to the group and moved onto the next prompt, not giving it much more thought. After the session was over, a friend of mine at the retreat named Lauren Tallman, emailed and said she thought I had an idea for a novel, and she’d like to hear how the story progresses.
I said, “Really?”
She answered, “Yeah, I think you have something there.”
When I sat at the computer, she was right, and the words flowed out of me. It was one of those things where the story wrote itself. Later, when I brought scenes to be critiqued at the Sin City Writer’s Group, the feedback I received was so positive, I felt like Lauren might be correct, and that I had a shot at a book.
Who do you read? Who inspires you?
J.K. Rowling is one of my favorites. Every now and then I have to go back to Hogwarts. I even read it in reverse order once. As for my writing style, Ernest Hemingway has the biggest influence. Margaret Mitchell with Gone With the Wind is great. F. Scott Fitzgerald with The Great Gatsby is great. Mark Twain too.
James Patterson, Stephen King, Wayne Turmel, and Vince Flynn to name a few modern authors. ( EDITORS NOTE Quit sucking up, you have the interview already.)
Of course, the greatest superhero of all time is William Shakespeare. I’ve probably read more of his works than any other.
Where can we find you and learn more?
On Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook, I’m @rhbirdauthor
My website is RHBird.com
My Amazon link is https://www.amazon.com/stores/R.H.-Bird/author/B0CV5ZD97S
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