Writing What You Love June 28, 2010

Alexander Campion

June 28 – July 2, 2010

One of the first standards a writer hears in a beginning writing course is, “Write what you know.” If all writers observed that guideline bookshelves would be full of boring and derivative stories. When a writer steps away from what they know to enter a world they love, story magic happens. This week in #litchat we’re discussing authors who write not only what they know, but what they love.

Guest host on Friday is Alexander Campion whose debut novel, The Grave Gourmet, launched on June 29. The first in a series called, The Capucine Culinary Mysteries, The Grave Gourmet combines the author’s love of food with an appetite for mysteries. A savory blend of murder and fine French cuisine, set against the beauty of Paris, Campion’s debut features a zesty, Dior-clad female investigator and her food critic husband working fork to fork in solving murders and sampling haute cuisine.

Campion started out as a true New Yorker, graduating from Columbia and migrating downtown to Wall Street. Early on he was given a six month term in Paris to assist a new venture his firm had just acquired. He stayed thirty-five years, eventually becoming a restaurant critic and progressing inevitably to gastronomic thrillers. He is currently living in Toronto—with his wife and his headstrong Basset Hound—planning to return to Paris in the near future.

Follow Alexander Campion on Twitter: @AlexCampion