Friday Night Reads: Peter H Green

This week I'll be hosting my fifteenth #FriNightReads! It's where I read the first chapter from an indie author, live on my author Facebook page. This Friday I'll be live-reading from Peter H Green's light-hearted Ben's War with the U.S. Marines. It's a funny true story about how one US radio man scooped the world on Japan's surrender during WWII.

What inspired you to become a writer?

It started with my parents, a homemaker and an ex-Marine, both writers and publicists, a grandfather who was a construction contractor and me, an architect that has seen plenty, and who just loves to tell stories. My dad did a lot of writing for his radio and ad agency jobs, and Mom had always wanted to be a writer and never went through with it. They had always said I had the ability to be a writer, and I’d always wanted to but needed to earn a living. In a way, I felt I owed it to them and to myself to finish what they started. And in my profession, my favorite activity was always describing the projects and getting people excited about hiring our team. I gravitated toward the marketing side of the business, writing proposals, reports, and publicity for my firms. This resulted in millions of words cascading from my pen and then from my computer screen over the years. That’s a lot of writing practice when you think about it.

Why do you love it?

Other than some early expressions as a child and some early interest but few thoughts of a writing career, it all started with a college class reunion. The bravest of our classmates tried to answer the provocative question: What are you going to do with the last third of your life? The prospect of all that time of relative ease stretching ahead of us beckoned like an unexplored continent. On that reunion trip, my wife and I also visited Mary Oates, one of her college classmates, a writer and editor herself, in Andover, Mass. I happened to mention that I spent the summer of 1945, when I turned six, just up the coast with my mother, sister, aunt, and her family in a rented seaside house at Annisquam, while Dad was off to war. Two days later she drove us to Gloucester and we found the very seaside cottage where we’d stayed that summer. That night, over much wine and good seafood, we were reminiscing about wartime problems, like coastal blackouts and rationing, when Mary blurted, “Peter, you’ve got to do it—write your dad’s story!” I said, “Gosh, I can— I’ve got Dad’s letters!” In the basement was an old cardboard box my mom had given me with 400 of my father’s World War II letters, which she had saved in their postmarked envelopes. Adding to these, his humorous war stories, my mother’s writings, and my family’s often hilarious doings, I realized I had a story too good to keep to myself. I decided to launch a second career as a writer.

More on Peter:

A writer, architect, and city planner reared in a family of journalists, Peter found his father’s 400 World War II letters, his humorous war stories, his mother’s writings and his family’s often hilarious doings too good a tale to keep to himself, so he launched a second career as a writer. After years of architectural work and proposal writing for his design firms, he went back to Washington University to study creative writing. The amusing antics and serious achievements of his father’s military adventure, Ben’s War with the United States Marines, and his first Patrick MacKenna Mystery, Crimes of Design, were republished in 2014 by Greenskills Press. A new Patrick MacKenna Mystery, Fatal Designs, appeared in early 2015. In 2016 the second book in his Voices of World War II series, Radio: One Woman’s Family in War and Pieces was published. Chicago’s Designs, his third Patrick MacKenna architectural mystery, appeared in 2019.

e-mail: phgreen@swbell.net To sample Peter's Patrick MacKenna Mystery, Crimes of Design, and his humorous, historical World War II biography, Ben’s War with the U. S. Marines, now available at major bookstores and online, please visit my website: www.authorpetergreen.com

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/AuthorPeterGreen

Twitter ID: @writerpeter

LinkedIn ID: Peter H. Green

#FriNightReads is a collaborative live-read author

Ryan P Freeman hosts each Friday at Titlewave Books. The goal is to help bring talented indie authors into the spotlight where they can enjoy the exposure and delight they deserve. To watch this celebration of talented indie authors, simply pop over to Ryan's author Facebook, Friday nights at 7p MT.

Want to have your own book read on the show or help sponsor #FriNightReads?

- Just message me, Ryan P Freeman, HERE!