I am pleased to welcome Garasamo Maccagnone, author of Sentiments of Blue as part of his virtual blog tour through Pump Up Your Book Virtual Tour.
Thirty years ago, I wrote Sentiments of Blue while attending Western Michigan University. Back in those ancient times, a writer couldn’t store a story on a computer file. I left the manuscript somewhere in the basement of my first house, and over time, it seemed to vanish.
The story received decent reviews from my classmates, and my professor. Years after graduating, a roommate of mine while at WMU, who was a graphic artist, created a poster around the title of the story. For twenty some years, his depiction has occupied walls of his friends, or customers, without any of them being able to read the actual story.
Knowing that all my stories are fixed in my mind, my wife challenged me to rewrite Sentiments of Blue. To do so, she goaded me, claiming she didn’t think I had it in me anymore. “You’re getting too old to pull that off,” were her exact words. Being competitive, and of course, cognizant of her good intentions, I accepted the challenge. Sentiments of Blue was written and finished in three days.( Take that Mrs. Vicki Maccagnone)!
In the story, the narrator recalls his last day working in a Michigan factory. As he yearns to escape the mundane world of his father’s legacy, he is immersed in a world controlled by ruthless characters.
Garasamo Maccagnone is a writer and entrepreneur. The founder of a successful airfreight business, Maccagnone now focuses on his literary career. He is the author of the novel St. John of the Midfield, the novella, For the Love of St. Nick, a collection of short stories entitled, My Dog Tim and Other Stories, and a children’s book titled, The Suburban Dragon. Sentiments of Blue is his latest short story collection. Maccagnone currently lives in Shelby Township where he is working on his second novel, The Sorrows of Pebble Creek.
