Featured Interview With Lonnie Ostrow
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in New York, raised on Long Island and continue to live there with my family today. I currently don’t have any pets. When I was 20 I was blessed for my mom to have brought home the best puppy friend anyone could hope for, Bambi. Sadly, she passed away when my oldest daughter was three. But I have very fond memories of my furry friend or as my children like to call her “The Best Beast Ever”.
I have been an innovator, storyteller, promoter and celebrity-insider for more than two decades.
Since 2001, I have been the publicity/ marketing director & researcher for the iconic best-selling novelist Barbara Bradford. I also serves as an editorial and marketing consultant for a collection of first-time authors through The Editorial Department. Previously I served as a PR executive, promoting an assortment of first-time celebrity authors including Ray Manzarek of The Doors.
From 1995 – 2001, I was widely credited with inventing the “living celebrity postal phenomenon.” In all, I have worked with more than 40 legendary personalities, creating media events to celebrate their postal recognition by an assortment of foreign nations.
I am excited to share that I have my first book coming out on November 10 2016 called Poet Of The Wrong Generation. With Poet Of The Wrong Generation, I attempt to combine all my unique experiences to bring you a novel of love & betrayal, music & fanfare, downfall & redemption — a fable of stardom’s rewards, set in New York City during the 1990s.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve been a fan of classic rock and folk music for as long as my memory stretches. So the concept of me writing a novel with a rock star protagonist should come to the surprise of no-one who knows me. I was also a novice songwriter back in my teenage years into my early 20s. So in fact, the words I scribbled in spiral notebooks 25 years ago were stashed away for decades, only to become an integral part of creating this novel when I came up with a storyline and the characters. I often wondered: what might life have been like had I actually pursued a musical career back in the 1990s? I suppose that some of this book is how that far fetched fantasy might have played out. Another notable aspect is my years of working with celebrities. As a kid, I had such reverence for the life of rock stars, athletes and other entertainers. Then I started to work closely with some of the biggest names in entertainment and quickly discovered that fame and glitz of the celebrity life is mostly a facade. These cherished individuals all have the same everyday wants, needs and problems as the rest of us.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Nick Hornby
Carl Hiaasen, especially Basket Case
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
A Confidential Source by Jan Brogan
Tell us a little about your latest book?
“It’s not that I don’t love you, and my tears are yet to dry.
But you can’t go back and forth forever and we’ve already said goodbye.”
Through these words, a young poet unearths his musical soul while severing ties with the woman he loves after her stunning betrayal. Unknowingly, in writing this ballad of liberation, he will soon evolve as one of the fastest rising stars on the pop music landscape.
The year is 1991; the place, New York City. Here we meet Johnny Elias, a college student from Brooklyn with boundless adoration for two things in life: timeless popular music, and the heart of a sweet, complicated young woman who is clearly out of his league.
Megan Price not only is the object of Johnny’s affection, but also the only daughter of New York’s most powerful PR woman: the indomitable Katherine Price.
Projecting that her daughter’s boyfriend will never live up to the family standard, Katherine cleverly perpetrates a series of duplicitous schemes to rid Johnny from her high-class world. But in her callous disregard, she inadvertently sets him on a determined course to his improbable musical destiny – while sending her own daughter spiraling down a path of despair.
Poet of the Wrong Generation tells the symmetrical story of a lovable underdog and his meteoric rise to stardom, his humiliating downfall and his unprecedented attempt to reclaim his place as the unlikely musical spokesman for his generation. At the heart of Poet is a tale of star-crossed lovers and their struggle with unforeseen success and disillusionment, in an attempt to rediscover lasting harmony.
Uniquely integrating a variety of original song compositions, Poet projects the epic clash between true contentment and the fable of stardom’s rewards; a nostalgic journey through the major events of the 1990s, with a cherished cast of characters and a stunningly unpredictable conclusion.
Audio soundtrack of the original music from Poet Of The Wrong Generation can be heard on the author website, LonnieOstrow.com.
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