I have always loved comedy and making people laugh and have a deep appreciation for humor writing, particularly one-liners because they require so a solid understanding of joke construction, cadence and rhythm. For me, I write to entertain people. I’ve made a conscious decision with this book and my comedy site, The Monkey Bellhop, to write material that is suitable for all audiences and doesn’t disparage individuals, but maybe institutions like Congress, but not individuals.

For The Barber’s Conundrum, I self-published it because I knew that no traditional publisher would be interested, and I wanted to see if I could do the whole thing myself and see how far I could get. I designed the cover and did all the proofing, formatting and everything else. Not because I’m really good at it all but because I’m really cheap.

By offering a variety of purchase/format options, Smashwords has made my book much more accessible. With the new arrangement with OverDrive, I feel my book has an even better shot of being picked up by the library market.

They are very instrumental in providing feedback, often immediate, as I tend to test ideas through Facebook posts and through my comedy blog, The Monkey Bellhop. (monkeybellhop.com). I know very quickly whether a joke or something longer works or not. They have been very, very supportive of my work and have done a lot to generate word of mouth sales.

I have a book on Facebook posts in the works. I have more than four years of material — mostly all jokes that reflect the culture, typical interactions and evolution of FB over that time. In some ways, it’s a parody of the site if such a thing is possible. I’m also working on a novel like the rest of my fellow Americans who aren’t working on screenplays.

Ken Kesey, TC Boyle, Elmore Leonard, Jennifer Egan, Howard Norman, Ron Rash, Edna O'Brien, Joseph Heller, Louise Erdrich, Jim Harrison, Roddy Doyle, Raymond Carver

I decided to write The Barber’s Conundrum and Other Stories when I realized my wife would let me get out of certain household obligations as long as I was “working.” For six years, the project was progressing very well and I was very satisfied with what I was putting down on paper until the day my wife took a break from insulating the attic and while I was in the shower, found my manuscript and discovered that what I was putting down on paper was 200 pages filled with little stick men fishing, playing tennis and leaping in the air, arms and legs akimbo.

The Barber's Conundrum and Other StoriesAfter that, I started the book for real and finished the whole thing in 72 hours, which was all the time my wife would gave me to wrap everything up before she started shopping for a divorce lawyer.

I’m kidding. My wife is my biggest supporter and figures prominently in the book and in its publication. In truth, many of the pieces were written for a string of local newspapers in NJ in a weekly humor column called “Now What?”. I supplemented those pieces with new ones and published the book in December 2012.

I am often asked to cite individuals who influence or inspire my writing and the list is quite long. I’m a big fan of comedy and my biggest influences growing up and later in life are (in no particular order), Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Bob & Ray, Jean Shepard (on the radio and his books—not so much the movie, “A Christmas Story”), Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Rodney Dangerfield, Woody Allen, Garry Shandling, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bob Newhart, everyone in SCTV (Second City Television) which includes Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Martin Short, John Candy and Eugene Levy, Steven Wright and Christopher Guest (all of his movies). I think the one comedic attribute they all have share is the ability to humorously convey the day to day trials and tribulations of the “common man”.

I wrote this book with the sole intention of giving readers a little bit of a break – ideally stories and situations to identify with, feel good about and most importantly, laugh at. Nothing’s too heavy, there’s no profanity and most of the real biting humor is directed at myself. I wonder what Freud would say about that.

I sincerely hope you like it. And buy it. Of course, buy it. God, I’m a horrible marketer.

I work as a headhunter in the publishing industry and when I'm not writing or working, I am driving my kids somewhere I used to walk to or playing tennis, doing projects around the house or avoiding projects around the house by hiding in the basement with my guitar. I would love to write full time but I have been unable to convince my brain, my stomach or my children that we can live without eating or by sleeping under a tree as long as it is a member of the evergreen family.

Very hard. There is so much content out there and it is very, very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff at times. Often it's stumbling upon something that sounds interesting while surfing the web, finding an entertaining or well written blog written by an author, or referrals.

Yes, it was about a psychic who had the ability to contact the dead and he was pressed into service by a collection agency to speak to the deceased to find out where their living, deadbeat relatives were hiding to avoid debt collectors and in the process stumbles upon God's diary.

Like most people, from left to write and almost exclusively on a computer. I rewrite so much that if I relied on notepads, the paper industry would be relying on me to keep it afloat.

While it wasn't the first, "The Catcher in the Rye" was very important to me because of the humor, the first person perspective and its ability to very funny and entertaining without turning the characters into cartoons. In many ways, it is a very sad and moving story but boy there were so many laugh out load passages and for me, that it helped me to realize that a good writer could accomplish both.

I do it myself, so I guess you could say I approach it head on.

Anything that is not a newspaper. Too depressing.

iPad

Facebook by far. I have had very limited success with purchasing PR services, Internet Blog Tours, tweeting services, etc. I have had some lift from reviews (lots on Amazon and on blogs). People who communicate with me on a regular basis via real life or Facebook have been the ones who have purchased the book and spread the word.

Flat

I grew up in Cranford, NJ and after college, moved to CA where I lived for 14 years. I moved back to Cranford in 1997 and live a mile or so away from my parents. Most of what I write is humor based. Not all, but most of it. I developed my voice after years of observing people, reading the work of other authors and humorists, watching television and movies and studying the skills of comedy writers and performers.

I was always creating jokes from the age of 11 or so, mostly one liners then.

The Barber’s Conundrum and Other Stories is a collection of humor essays that address every day life including parenting (The School Project: An American Tragedy), relationships (How Bananas Almost Destroyed My Marriage), religion (If We’re Late Again for Church, I Will Kill You), the media (There But for the Grace of God Goes the Weather Reporter), animals, specifically geese who tie up traffic by refusing to fly (Behold the Goose), the afterlife (An Unwanted Glimpse of the Afterlife), and other topics readily identifiable and relatable to anyone who doesn’t employ and house a staff of servants that outnumber their immediate family by a ratio of 16:1.

Getting out of housework and hearing from people how my pieces made them laugh.

It's not knowing I have to make it, that's for sure. Actually my dog, Scout, is my inspiration. She jumps on my head and I have to get up to breathe.

Because I have a family to support through my regular job as a recruiter, as well all the other obligations tied to raising kids such as driving them to places people my age formerly walked to, I have to work on my writing when time allows and so it may be a few days of intense focus and then a few months where nothing gets written at all. Regarding research, there are some pieces that are inspired directly by news events and I often cite them at the beginning of the essay to establish the context in which the humor is derived.