SCHEDULE OF READING EVENTS

Barry Willdorf — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:11:24 +0000

March 8, 2012, Why There Are Words, 333 Caledonia, Sausalito 7-9 p.

April 15, 2012, A Shot in the Arm book launch party, Cafe Royale, 800 Post St. San Francisco,
April 19, 2012, InsideStoryTime, Cafe Royale, 800 Post St. San Francisco.

1970s Trilogy Covers

Barry Willdorf — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:53:54 +0000

NEW E-BOOK: SEE YOU IN COURT

Barry Willdorf — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:21:12 +0000

Come on over to my new blog dedicated to helping writers write more accurate courtroom scenes and to those of you who may have a courtroom in your personal future.

Don’t be afraid to ask a question.

Sorry. Personal legal advice will not be provided.

CLICK ON THE LINK> SEE YOU IN COURT!

Burning Questions gets a story in Gloucester Times!

Barry Willdorf — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:18:24 +0000

January 19, 2012
A lawyer’s Cape Ann thriller By Gail McCarthy Staff Writer A 66-year-old former trial lawyer with ties to Cape Ann has published a mystery-thriller novel — one based in Gloucester and infused with its colorful history.
Barry S. Willdorf, who settled in San Francisco decades ago, titled the first book in his trilogy “Burning Questions,” which is set in 1969. That is an era he knows well, having lived here part-time here and having grown up in Malden.
Willdorf said the novel brims with rich recollections of Gloucester and Cape Ann during the 1950s and ’60s. The story recounts the blaze that gutted the Oceanside Hotel, which began a trend that transformed the Magnolia district from an upscale tourist destination to a community of summer homes.
Willdorf used to live in Magnolia across from the old Surf Restaurant, and is old enough to remember the Oceanside Hotel fire in 1957.
To read the whole article click: http://www.gloucestertimes.com/lifestyle/x1070344323/A-lawyers-Cape-Ann-thriller

YOU ARE INVITED TO A BOOK LAUNCH FOR “A SHOT IN THE ARM”

Barry Willdorf — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:40:00 +0000

A Shot in the Arm, the second part of the 1970s Trilogy, is now scheduled for publication in April 2012. THERE WILL BE A BOOK LAUNCH at CAFE ROYALE, 800 Post Street, SF on April 15, 2012 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p,m. with prizes and surprises. If you can read this, you are invited. No cover. No minimum.

CRUSHED!

Barry Willdorf — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:24:44 +0000

I was in the eight grade. She was in the eight grade too. Who knows what does it. You see someone and you go crazy insane with attraction.
She was standing in a circle with a group of friends, laughing. I can still recall that she was wearing one of those high schooly sweaters, the kind of plaid skirt that has the big fake safety clip thing, vertical along a supposed end of the material, but you know it’s really sewed closed. I’m old enough to disclose that she was wearing bobby sox and saddle shoes. Her hair was done up in a bob. She was petite, with a tiny nose, which I found very attractive, since I was beginning to grow a big one.

I leaned against a tree in the school yard and watched her, using the tree as cover and pretending not to be looking. I don’t think she noticed me, which was both a relief and a disappointment. When the bell rang, I waited for her to pass and followed her into the school like a detective tailing a suspect. I found out her homeroom and over the next week or so, I learned pretty much her entire schedule. I also followed her home. By the end of the week, I thought I was pretty damn good at following people.

It was close to Christmas. My friend Joey, who was a sophomore in high school was throwing a party. Besides a brand new house, he had a driver’s license and a 1954 Ford that he had “improved” into a hot rod. He was a member of a hot rod club that was ironically named “The Pacemakers.” I sometimes think that if he is still alive he’s still in a club with that name, but it’s got nothing to do with cars.

It was in the era of phone books and you could actually figure out the right number if you knew the address. So it came to pass, after many, many anxious moments, fraught with fear of rejection, that I called her up and invited her to Joey’s party. To my amazement, she accepted.

On the eve of this momentous event, I got my father to drive me to her house and chauffeur us to the party. It was embarrassing.

The party was pretty much a dud when it came to the required elements. Joey had crappy music. The food was sodas and chips. I was one of only a couple of the guys with a date. The rest of the kids were just the same bunch who I hung out with on the street all the time and with whom I got into miscellaneous trouble.

Then, fate entered the picture. I got a stomach ache that wouldn’t quit. Did Joey have a hand in it? I’ll never know. But he was quick to volunteer to drive us home. Being concerned with my medical condition, I’m sure, he took me home first. And that was my first and last date with my crush. From that day onward, she could be found in the front seat of Joey’s Ford scootched up so close to him that he had trouble shifting from second to third without his hand winding up in her accommodating lap. I think they call it a crush because when stuff like this happens, you get crushed.

And so, he married this girl after high school. And the last time I saw them was at a funeral and Joey had gotten extremely fat. So I guess, she was getting crushed too.

I’M READING AT “WHY THERE ARE WORDS”

Barry Willdorf — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:29:14 +0000

Get a peek at my new novel and the whole 1970s Trilogy at Why There Are Words. A literary event not to be missed.

March 8, 2012 Studio 333, 333 Caledonia St., Sausalito, CA 94965 7-9pm

READ AN EXCERPT FROM “A SHOT IN THE ARM”

Barry Willdorf — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:20:53 +0000

I’ve posted an excerpt from my new novel, A Shot in the Arm, on http://1970strilogy.blogspot.com. Check it out. Here’s the blurb:

Eager to make a name for himself, Nate reject’s Christina’s advice and takes the case of a black militant charged with homicide. But his life is threatened after he learns that his fat cash retainer comes from money stolen from government agents involved in a clandestine drugs for arm scheme. Only Christina can save him. But she’s caught him philandering. Will she?

FIRST PRE-PUB REVIEW FOR “A SHOT IN THE ARM”

Barry Willdorf — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:12:06 +0000

This second book in Barry S. Willdorf’s seventies trilogy is set in the Bay Area where people’s lawyer Nate Lewis is torn between defending the oppressed, making a name for himself, and full-throttle self-destructive behavior. The fast-moving novel brings to life a world that is at once familiar– tourists are still all over Fisherman’s Wharf– and also markedly different– the main character complains about $2.00 movies.

The primary narrator is Nate himself, who takes on a case he knows he shouldn’t. He is drawn to– okay, a sucker for– black militants who appear to be taking a fall for someone else’s crime. The legal details are sharp; the drinking and drugging and low life neighborhoods are Day-Glo vivid. The plot has plenty of twists and turns, but the real interest is less in whodunit than in how Nate almost loses his life as well as the love of his life. Nate is smart and reasonably brave, but in the end is saved from himself and some really bad actors by someone even smarter and braver.

I was glad to know he made it, and that there’s at least one more novel out there about him and his world.

Meredith Sue Willis, Author of Ten Strategies to Write Your Novel and Out of the Mountains.

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GUN LOBBY RALLIES AROUND SANTORUM!

Barry Willdorf — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:16:40 +0000

“You’ll have to pry my cold dead hands off my sweater vest,” NRA President Rick O’Shay said today as he fondled a moth-eaten woolen object that looked to be tartan plaid. “It’s been in the closet too long and we’re just glad that Santorum had the balls to pull it out. You know, this is one sweater that really stands for the right to bare arms, something we’re all for. It’s a shame that no one was willing to come out wearing one until Santorum. He’s sure demonstrated his leadership abilities with his clothing selection. What more can you ask from a presidential candidate?

“A few weeks ago, when Newt Gingrich was shooting off his mouth, we thought that we’d found the guy for us, but then he started shooting from the hip and we began to wonder, how’s he going to hit anything that way?

“We took a look at Ron Paul. For a while there, we thought he was a straight shooter, but sometimes he goes off half-cocked and no one’s going to vote for a guy who’s got only half a cock.

“Don’t even get me started on Romney. You ask me, he’s a loose canon. Every time he turns around, he shoots himself in the foot. About a quarter of our constituency seems to like that because he can’t seem to miss but it’s got nothing to do with marksmanship. His problem is he aims to please.

“When you get right down to it, all of our candidates, except Santorum are stuffed shirts. That’s the reason he’s the only one who can wear a sweater vest.”

SCHEDULE OF READING EVENTS

March 8, 2012, Why There Are Words, 333 Caledonia, Sausalito 7-9 p.

April 15, 2012, A Shot in the Arm book launch party, Cafe Royale, 800 Post St. San Francisco,

April 19, 2012, InsideStoryTime, Cafe Royale, 800 Post St. San Francisco.