My blogging life goes back a ways. Truth be told, once upon a time when I toiled in media relations, I ghost wrote and managed one of the first major corporate blogs. This was in the very early days of social media. Pioneer days, truly.
Built and nurtured that blog for 6 years and 400+ posts. Its reach extended into the millions of unique visitors around the globe. Won a national PRSA award for it.
That’s all just to say that starting up this personal blog feels like getting back on a bicycle.
Now, before I went corporate, I had a life in news broadcasting, as a reporter and anchor at television stations around the U.S. But I’d always dreamed of writing a novel.
Finally, during the pandemic and the aftermath, I did.
A novel idea
LAST BRIDGE TO MEMPHIS is my unpublished novel, envisioning an alternate history where Elvis Presley lives into middle age.
“Live at six. That’s a joke.
I’m dead at thirty.”
The story follows a young newsman caught in a trap between a dead-end career, a homicidal cop, and a man by the name of “Danny Fisher,” who may just be an angel in disguise.
The pitch
It’s the summer of 1987, and Tom, a reporter at a local TV station, thinks he’s left his misfortunes behind. He’s content to lose himself in other people’s tragedies—until the night he ghosts his pregnant girlfriend and stumbles onto a brutal crime scene. Now he faces a dilemma: report what he saw, or toe the official line.
The choices he makes, on-the-air and off, could cost him a relationship, his TV job, and—when a rogue cop sets his sights on the reporter—might end his life.
When a series of violent encounters surfaces his crushing guilt from a childhood accident, Tom grows desperate. He finds comfort in the arms of a married woman who hides a dangerous secret, and seeks answers from the aging rock ‘n roll star welcoming Tom into his world.
As their lives intersect, they may be forced to confront their tragic pasts and a killer—a deadly collision course with all roads leading to the LAST BRIDGE TO MEMPHIS.
If I can dream
But who wants to read a book that has a character of a down-and-out Elvis, past his prime, in an Elvis-verse where he lives long past August 1977? Well, maybe you would.
I mean, didn’t we recently have a blockbuster Elvis biopic? And a Priscilla movie? The NBC television network just devoted 60 minutes of valuable prime time to a Christmas at Graceland special! Oh, and have you checked Spotify lately? Elvis has claim to 35 million listeners a month. By one account, more than a billion streams last year.
That’s a lotta shakin’ going on.
Anyway, a guy can dream.
If you’re intrigued by the concept, go ahead and leave a comment. And read on for further musings on Elvis, writing, and life as we know it.