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| Photo by Liars Club member Don Lafferty |
At today's monthly meeting of Philadelphia-area writers - an event known as the Writers Coffeehouse - local writer Jonathan Maberry announced that he and his wife are leaving the area to move to San Diego.
Now Jonathan (in the above photo, he's the big bearded guy sitting underneath the red-and-gray poster of The Sound and the Fury) is the driving force behind the Writers Coffeehouse. They grew out of meetings he started, and he chairs them better than anyone else. He's not the only one who does so, of course. The Writers Coffeehouse meetings are the responsibility of a group of professional writers called the Liars Club of Philadelphia.
But the meetings won't be the same without Jonathan.
And he's an inspiration to the rest of us. He writes 10,000 words a day. He comes out with three novels a year. Most of the professional writes I know need a second income to survive. But Jonathan is not only a full-time writer, but he the only writer I know who makes a good living at it.
I consider him a mentor. Earlier today, when I mentioned that I'd been offered the chance to do a movie novelization for $2,000, he told me, "Tony, Tony, Tony. Don't work for that kind of money. You can't make a living at it." He's right.
So we're all going to miss not seeing Jonathan once a month. Our loss is San Diego's gain.
If you're interested in his work, please visit his website.
Two of his recent books are pictured below. I've read them both, and they're a lot of fun.
