Featured Interview With Greg Bailey
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a native Midwesterner. I was also an Air Force brat but unlike most other military families we stayed in one place for a long time. Other than the first six weeks of my life, six years in Indiana, time away at college and three years total in Springfield, Illinois, I have lived in or near St. Louis. While I can never qualify as a native St. Louisan I come pretty close.
Unfortunately I don’t have any pets at the moment, but I’ve had fox terriers in the past. For a while I occasionally babysat a friend’s little dog which I renamed Boogerhead, much to her owner’s dismay. One of my main goals in life is to have another dog.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My mother started reading to me almost from birth. I learned to read from the Dick and Jane books. I’ve always collected books filling eight large bookcases in my home as well as others stacked on the floor.
In the second grade my class published a mimeographed newspaper. I wrote most of the articles and I’ve never stopped. My first paying job was covering basketball for the local newspaper for $5 a week. My first national publication was an article in The Progressive. I always knew I would be a writer, but I was also an attorney for 23 years. Now I am devoted to writing and teaching.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love to read history books but I also read Hemingway, Steinbeck, Richard Yates, John LeCarre and others. Recently I’ve discovered James Lileks who has written some of the funniest books I have ever read. Probably the most inspirational book I ever read was Boss by Mike Royko, which lead me to both journalism and politics. I am also a big fan of Hunter S Thompson, whom I got to meet once. At the moment I am reading and reviewing several books on the Civil War and World
War II for history journals, as well as working on two history books.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My first book is The Voyage of the F. H. Moore and Other 19th Century Whaling Accounts. The centerpiece of the book is the never before published journal of a 21 yer old harpooner on a 1873-74 whaling voyage from Boston to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. I edited it and the other first person accounts of the period and wrote about the background and aftermath of the story. I presented the accounts in a realistic and unromantic way but I also put whaling into context. Today whaling is rightly viewed in horror but at the time they were simply doing business supplying the market with oil and whale bone. It took longer to find a publisher than to write the book.