Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric D Goodman.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been interested in writing ever since a third-grade English assignment turned me on to storywriting back in the early 1980s. I’ve always loved writing, and can’t imagine a life in which I’m not thinking about or working on the next project.
As early as sixth grade, I was writing novels in notebooks, and I actually submitted my first manuscript to agents and publishers when I was still in high school.
Of course, it wasn’t until I moved to Baltimore (I was a navy dependent and moved around every few years growing up) in my late 20s that I started to become involved with the local literary community and began to have some success as a writer.
The first book I had published was a children’s storybook (Flightless Goose) in 2008. My first adult fiction was Tracks: A Novel in Stories, published by Atticus Books in 2011. After that, Womb: A novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017), and the next three novels were published by Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press: Setting the Family Free (2019), The Color of Jadeite (2020) and Wrecks & Ruins (2022). My most recent book is a collection of poetry put out by Yorkshire Publishing in October 2024 called Faraway Tables.
In addition to my fiction and poetry, I write travel stories for a number of print and online magazines, like Baltimore Style, Montgomery Magazine, Washington Family, and Go World Travel (which often get picked up by MSN.com’s travel section).
And I spent about 25 years as a writer for the federal government, doing everyting from speech writing and public affairs to information books and newsletters.
But I’ve only talked about the writing. My story wouldn’t be complete without mentioning my wife of 31 years, Nataliya, my 27-year-old daughter, Nicole, my 20-year-old son, Alex, or that that I feel more at home in Maryland than anywhere else I’ve ever lived,
Baltimore and Baltimore County have strong literary communities and programs and it’s been so great to be a part of them. I started going to the Baltmore Book Fest in 2003, got involved with the Maryland Writers’ Association around the same time, and for the past 18 years I’ve co-hosted and curated the Lit & Art Reading Series, most recently in the Bromo-Seltzer Arts Tower.
As much as I love being in the area, another part of my story is travel. My family and I love to travel, and we go abroad often. This year we explored Japan, last year it was Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and South of France … we just love to travel and I love to write about those experiences.
So family, friends, traveling, literary events, and writing are the elements that make up my story.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It never exactly feels smooth at the moment, because you’re always working toward the next goal. But in retrospect, it’s probably been more smooth than rough.
When I was in my 20s I thought I was just going to get a novel published and the rest would be book deal offers and press junkets. But each new book or project is a challenge and I still collect more rejection letters than acceptances. So if the dream was to be a full time fiction writer and traveler, the dream’s only been partially fulfilled. But I try to focus on that part.
It is still a strugle to get reviews, to convince people why your book out of the hudnreds of thousands of books they could pick up off the shelf, is the one they should read. But knowing that someone thought enough of each book to invest in publishing it is some validation that the work is more than just a hobby, that it matters.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
It can be hard to judge your own work and what is best, but start with what interests me as a creative writer and end with what others have told me.
I have always been interested in perspective, in the idea that the same occurance or event can be so many different things to different people. I’m interested in looking at the same scene from more that one character’s perspective, and at looking at characters from multiple perspectives–their own, the person sitting next to them, etc. And I enjoy taking seemingly everyday moments and lifting them, revealing them as monumental.
I’ve been told that I have a knack for convincing and meaninful dialogue, that I’m good at creating a vivid setting and making it almost a character in the story. And that I”m good at getting to the heart of emotional truths with simple, relatable language.
That seeps from the fiction into my poetry as well. Much of my poetry in Faraway Tables, my latest book, was about looking at everyday moments, during the pandemic, during travels, at work, with friends and family, and finding meaning in the everyday.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
I’d advise people to get involved with the community they want to be a part of. For a writer, that means going to literary events like poetry readings, fiction readings, book festivals, and book clubs not only to share your own work but to listen to the work of others. By joining communities like this, you will meet the people who can become your mentors. They don’t need to be official mentors with regular one-on-one meetings and strategic development plans. Just getting to know other writers or people in the community of your interest can be a big benefit. In a sense, you could come away with multiple mini-mentors, all of whom you can learn from.
Pricing:
- Faraway Tables – $16.99
- Tracks: A Novel in Stories – $15.99
- Setting the Family Free – $18.99
- The Color of Jadeite – $17.99
- Womb: a novel in utero $15.99
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.EricDGoodman.com
- Instagram: Edge.Writer
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edgewriter/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-d-goodman-3582081/
- Twitter: @edgewrite
- Youtube: @writeedge
- Other: www.Writeful.blogspot.com
