I started preparing for a writing career in 6th grade when I received a diary for Christmas. It took a long time for me to dedicate myself to writing full time, but in 2006 I “retired” from acting and directing to devote all my energies to writing three books that had been evolving in my mind for years. One of them, In Those First Bright Days of Elvis, will be published by Pen-L Publishing in the Spring of 2016.
The book will take you back in time to the golden age of America, when many people didn’t bother to lock their doors and most goods were made right here in the United States. The story begins when a young man from Tupelo, Mississippi stood on the precipice of worldwide fame which would bestow on him the title, King of Rock and Roll.
Although the book is a work of fiction, the dates of Elvis Presley’s concerts and record releases are accurate. The setting is a real town in south Arkansas, and many locations were actual places where teens of the fifties hung out.
The main character, Julie, is a girl who, like so many kids of today, has an absentee parent. One in four families in America are missing a mom or a dad, and are broken by divorce. Julie suffers from the lack of support and guidance a father could give her. To compensate, she unconsciously seeks to get that love and support from her boyfriend, and that leads to trouble.
On the night of October 17, 1955, Julie and her three girlfriends take a notion to attend The Hillbilly Amateur show at the football stadium in her hometown, where an unknown singer by the name of Elvis Presley is the star performer. At the concert something happens that gives Elvis that last ounce of confidence he needs to make it to the top, Julie screams. She is the first girl in recorded history driven to scream by Elvis’s fabulous performance. In his mind she becomes his good luck charm. A lifetime friendship blossoms between Elvis and Julie, and in this age when there was no email or texting, the friendship is kept alive by letters.
For teens today who might not be familiar with Elvis, King of Rock and Roll, who so thrilled the world, there is a magic about that era which I have tried to recreate in my book, along with the problems people had to deal with in the age before cell phones and birth control pills.
Stay tuned for more about In Those First Bright Days of Elvis.
