How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website.
I studied poetry at Brooklyn College with David Lehman. He once said that if it isn’t worth a title, it isn’t worth writing. He also pointed out that the titles of poems are sometimes the actual first lines. Titles have always been significant to me. In fact, in my now thirty plus years of being a published novelist, I have never begun a book without a strong sense of what the title would be and I have never once changed a title to suit a publisher. I have also helped several colleagues title their books. Sleepless City is an obvious allusion to New York City’s reputation as the city that never sleepless. But there’s something edgier about insomnia and sleeplessness. That’s what I was going for, the edge. My sense is that most everyone who might read the book will get the allusion and it won’t take many pages, one or two at most, for them to see how the title is so appropriate to the writing.
What's in a name?
Here again, I’ll refer to...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl.
The Page 69 Test: Where It Hurts.
The Page 69 Test: What You Break.
Writers Read: Reed Farrel Coleman (March 2017).
My Book, The Movie: Sleepless City.
Q&A with Reed Farrel Coleman.
--Marshal Zeringue
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