Dave's World

In the future on this blog, you'll start getting to know some folks who I think are pretty cool and who are doing some awesome things. The first in this series is a Q&A session with Dave Copeland, a fellow graduate of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at Goucher College. Let's get right to the interview!

TJ: Dave, you’ve got a book coming out any day now. It’s called Blood & Volume: Life Inside of New York’s Israeli Mafia. You came upon this project in somewhat of an unusual fashion. Tell us about how you got involved with this book.

D.C.: I was thinking that doing a book on the Witness Protection program – getting sucked out of your life and dropped into a new one – would be a great topic for a book. But to illustrate it I needed someone who was actually in the program, and people who are in the program don’t usually wear T-Shirts that say “Ask me about my life in WitSEC!”

At the time I had just started working as a freelance writer so I was scouring hundreds of ads on Craigslist each day for job leads. I was downright shocked when I came across an ad that essentially read “My husband and I are in the Witness Protection program and we’re looking for a writer to tell our story to.”

It was only later, after I had talked to the couple and to Pete Earley, my mentor at Goucher College’s creative nonfiction writing program, that I realized life in the Witness Protection Program isn’t really interesting at all (Pete has, however, written a very good book on how the program was formed). The more I talked to the Gonens the more I realized the interesting story was how they got in the program.

TJ: Give us some information about your background as a writer.

D.C.: I was one of those kids who always loved to read and from a young age people told me I was a good writer – I think I first tried to write a book when I was nine and now, 24 or 25 years later, I’ve finally finished one. After college I worked for newspapers and wire services, and as a result of that I think – at least until very recently – I’ve identified more with being a journalist than a writer.

T.J.: Tell us, why should we buy Blood & Volume?

D.C.: I need the money….Kidding!

It’s not a long book, but there is a lot going on there. One of my big fascinations with my work is it’s a perfect excuse to step into the lives of people who do something you would never, ever do – in this case deal lots of drugs and get tied up with a group of people who kill one another for sport. While living within the parameters of nonfiction I really made an effort to make each of the people in the book a character. And while I don’t expect readers to like these people, I do think they will find them complex and interesting.

T.J.: Do you have any other book projects that you’re working on? If not, then what would you like to do next?

D.C.: I have been pecking away at my next book proposal whenever I have a few minutes. It’s kind of hard to define just yet – I don’t have my 30-second elevator pitch polished for the next book. But essentially 2004 and 2005 were two of the worst years of my life, and 2006 was one of the best years I’ve had.

And a big reason for the turn around was my decision to run a marathon. You know me and you know I’m not what people would call athletic. In fact, I don’t think I had run more than a mile or two at any one time in my life before I decided to run a marathon. As miserable as it was at times, the whole experience really taught me what it means to be happy and how to focus on taking care of myself, both physically and emotionally.

There’s a lot going on in the book, but I suspect the subtitle will be something along the lines of “How and Why A Big Fat Guy Ran A Marathon.” And it’s funny – if you think of Bill Bryson’s A Walk In The Woods, where a neophyte hiker decides to walk the Appalachian Trail, I think you’ll have a fairly good idea of where I’m heading with it.

T.J.: I know you’ve also started a television production company. The first project you’re working on is a show called “Camp.” What is “Camp” and how is that project coming along?

D.C.: “Camp” is a sitcom that is probably best targeted at a network like Comedy Central. The setting is a typical, American summer camp but the story is told from the point of view of the staff members: the under-sexed, over-stimulated twenty-somethings who are responsible for other people’s kids all summer. If you mashed together “South Park,” “Meatballs” and the BBC version of “The Office” and threw in a hyperactive albino with anger management issues, you may have something that looks like “Camp.”

We seem to be making some headway. We’ve gotten some strong interest from a major production company and we’re hoping they’ll sign on and begin pitching it to networks within the next couple of months.

T.J.: Do you like TV- or book-writing better?

D.C.: They’re both still very new to me so they’re both still a lot of fun in their own ways. T.V. writing is fun because I’m writing “Camp” with my best friend, who I met at camp when I was 11, so it’s more collaborative and not as lonely. But at the same time, I never really pictured myself writing for film or television so book writing comes a lot closer to feeling like a dream fulfilled.

T.J.: Do you anticipate that being a big-time author and TV writer will help bring in the hot chicks?

D.C.: No, rock stars get all the hot chicks. The fact that a lot of writers aspire to be rock stars but not too many rock stars aspire to be authors says a lot.

T.J.: If you could live anywhere in the world—money was not a factor—where would you live and why?

D.C.: Boston, Massachusetts. If money was not a factor I’d travel a lot and maybe own multiple houses, but this is home.

T.J.: What is the most recent music that you’ve purchased?

D.C.: I keep a notepad and pen on the console of my car and everyone who rides with me thinks it’s real writer-like, as if I’m jotting down ideas for my next project at traffic lights. But the reality is that 90 percent of what I write on that pad are songs I hear on the radio that I want to buy on iTunes.

So the last five songs I’ll own up to having downloaded are “Tall Cans In The Air” by the Transplants, “Fatty” by the Street Dogs, “”Nausea,” by Beck, “Connecticut’s For Fucking” by Jesus H. Christ and the Four Horsemen and “Goodbye Earl” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. And off of iTunes I’ve downloaded “Close Your Eyes” by New Invisible Joy.

T.J. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

D.C.: I’d like to have enough f-you money to be able to pick and choose the projects I want to work on. Better than that, I’d like our T.V. production company to be big enough so that I can hire all of my friends for insanely huge salaries – sort of like “Entourage.” But if I’m writing books, healthy and still surrounded by good friends and family I suspect I’ll be happy regardless how much money I have in the bank.

T.J. Thanks for your time, Dave, and good luck with all your projects!

Coming from from Barricade Books...
Blood & Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia by Dave Copeland
Pre-order your copy today.