A friend of mine from church tells me “God is winking at you” as we discussed those unexplained, hard to believe coincidences that pop up in our lives.
I’ve had two such winks in the past week aboard our cruise ship crossing a placid, smooth-as-silk North Atlantic from Florida to Holland. One surprisingly brought me back to the U-T newsroom.
Setting the scene: You’d be hard pressed to find a library these days aboard a cruise ship, excepting Cunard ships and a few others.
Our ship, the Rotterdam, has a pleasing library that is more about design than the books it offers, under a warning that some folks might find some titles offensive.
I had a hard time finding anything, until Sharon handed me James T. Patterson’s “The Stories of My Life” autobiography, written in the heart of the pandemic.
I’ll cut to the chase, written by Patterson, the world’s top-selling author.
“I got infamous writing mysteries so here’s the big mystery plot for this book. How did a shy, introspective kid from a struggling upstate New York river town who didn’t have a lot of guidance or role models go on to become, at 38, CEO of the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson North America? How did this same person become the bestselling writer in the world? That’s just not possible.
“But it happened,” he writes. “My grandmother preached early and often - hungry dogs run faster.”
In his prolific writing career, non-fiction and fiction, Patterson has taken to co-writing books with prominent names - ranging from Bill Clinton to … (drum roll, please) former U-T reporter Mark T. Sullivan, who has at least five collaborations with Patterson.
On paper, you could say that at one time I was Mark’s boss as metro editor, but I can recall very few direct interactions with him in the newsroom bureaucracy. That’s not to disparage his work. Since then, he has become an A-list author of mysteries and historical fiction.
Here’s what Patterson says of Sullivan: “Mark Sullivan went to Hamilton College in upstate New York, just like my Dad and pal Tim Malloy. All that terrific education and Mark ends up writing suspense novels, like his huge bestseller ‘Beneath a Scarlet Sky.’ No wonder Mark is my favorite cowriter (as Patterson says also of several others).”
Sullivan on Patterson: “Jim is always in favor of changes if the changes make the tale more terrific. He also forced me to be constantly aware of our characters and their private lives and the dramatic forces and emotional stakes in every scene. Jim can be withering in his criticism and effusive in his praise. He’s generous to a fault and you can’t get a better understanding or advice of the publishing business. Most of all, Jim’s made me a better storyteller and writer. What could be better than that?”
Which made me think that if you edited Mark’s work at the U-T, you may want to stand up and take a bow.
And, this just in. Mark’s latest book, “All the Glimmering Stars” is due for release May 7. Advance review:
“Set amid the harrowing chaos of Joseph Kony’s cultlike regime and his abducted children turned soldiers, an extraordinary narrative of love and unwavering resilience emerges. The intertwined journey of Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori stands as a luminous symbol of hope. Their love becomes a refuge, a testament to the human spirit’s endurance.”
—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
My second wink aboard this ship? One night, the entertainers were Vox Fortura, a black quartet from the U.S. that got their start in the UK in 2016.
In introducing themselves, one told the audience he was from Chicago, my hometown.
Seeing him later at a pier side restaurant, I introduced myself as a fellow Chicagoan and found out we were born in the same hospital.
His name is Nathan Chester and if you watch “The Voice” on NBC you saw him move up in the competition earlier this week.
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WALT BARANGER writes:
NPR’s $230 million bequest from Joan Kroc was covered in a Washington Post story last year. It has helped keep NPR afloat, but the other factors have largely offset the interest income from the endowment.
They don’t touch the $190 million principle, which is why NPR still needs other substantial income sources.
‘Are you sitting down?’ The windfall that transformed NPR 20 years ago.
In 2003, McDonald’s heiress Joan B. Kroc bequeathed more than $200 million to NPR. This is the impact of the record-breaking gift over the past 20 years.
