Steven M. Forman
Historical Fiction
From seafood marketing guru to published author, his latest in the historical fiction genre
Steven Forman was born in the Boston area in 1942, graduated the University of Massachusetts in 1963 and started his own seafood marketing company in 1970. He has always had a passion for writing but did not publish his first book until 2009.
He has devoted most of his adult life to building a one-man company into an worldwide organization from the ground floors of Boston’s Haymarket Square to the grounds of the emperor’s palace in Tokyo. He has seen small ideas grow into gigantic successes. he has played a part in creating entirely new industries that remain viable and vibrant today.
In 1992 Steve and his wife Barbara traded the cold New England winters for the warmth of Boca Raton, FL and have been enjoying the best of both worlds since. The unique, contrasting lifestyles of Boston and Boca inspired him to write Boca Knights, the book he promised himself to write many years ago. The sequel, Boca Mournings, was published in 2010, and the third book in the Boca trilogy, Boca Daze, January of 2012. An ebook novella entitled Eddie The Kid is also available.
Steve has learned that the business and literary worlds have much in common: create a good product, market it to the public and hope consumers buy it repeatedly. The main difference he has experienced between his two careers is the public’s perception. He says, “Over the years I’ve sold millions and millions of pounds of seafood, but no one has ever asked me to sign a piece of fish. Write a good book, however, and suddenly a lot of people want my signature on something besides a check.”
Learn more about Steve on his website, read our interview with him in our Author Spotlight, and check out our review of his latest, A Better Place, here.
BOOKS
A Better Place (2019)
Eddie the Kid novella (2012)
Boca Daze (2011)
Boca Mournings (2010)
Boca Knights (2009)
Biggest literary influences:
Elmore Leonard, Nelson DeMille, Harper Lee, Carl Hiassen, James Michener, Harold Robbins
Last book read:
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
The book that changed your life:
To Kill a Mockingbird – I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was eighteen years old. Growing up in the northeast I had no idea what life was like in places like Monroeville, Alabama where Harper Lee’s novel takes place. My only exposure to racial inequality was what I read in the newspapers or heard in crude conversations. To Kill a Mockingbird brought bigotry, inequality and injustice to my doorstep and the character of Atticus Finch showed me how one man could make a difference. Boo Radley, the mysterious, scary Finch neighbor taught me not to judge people I didn’t really know. I often find myself referring to the lessons I learned from To Kill a Mockingbird to make important decisions and choices in my life.
Your favorite literary character:
Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird is a man with the moral strength to fight for what he believes is right, against his friends, his neighbors and his own upbringing. Growing up in the segregated south, Atticus becomes a lawyer in Monroeville and in his comfortable middle age chooses to defend a black man against rape charges brought by a white woman. His decision rankles some neighbors and confuses his family. Atticus believes the man is innocent and is entitled to a legal defense regardless of his color. He explains to his children that it’s a sin to kill an innocent mockingbird, and a sin not to defend an innocent man. Ultimately defeated by prejudice, Atticus has no doubt that his cause and his actions were just. He had no second thoughts. A true hero.
Currently working on:
Getting Eddie the Kid and the Shotgun Man published and writing another Eddie Perlmutter mystery. Working title, Get Eddie.
Words to live by:
“Never make unimportant things important.”
Advice to new and aspiring authors:
“Writers write. If you let rejection stop you, you are not a writer.”
Articles / Reviews
Testimonials
“From the trenches of World War I to the post-Vietnam era in North Platte, Nebraska, A Better Place is a wonderfully written, dramatic, multi-generational saga of soldiers, and lovers, goodness and evil. Diverse, complex and unforgettable characters. Well done.”
—Deborah Shlian, award-winning author of Rabbit in the Moon and Silent Survivor
“Steve Forman strafes the south Florida scene with Boca Knights, an outrageously funny mystery novel with a raft of offbeat characters and prose that moves trippingly off the pen. His main man is a character for the ages. Carl Hiassen, watch your back.”
—Doug Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Blasphemy
“Steve Forman’s fun, funky twist of the private eye novel is entertaining and takes dead aim at Boca Raton with devastating results.”
—James A. Born, author of Burn Zone
“This novel is long on clever dialogue and character development. Mystery readers of all stripes will like what they find here.”
—Booklist
“Boca Mournings is a riotous, ribald look into the wacky world of South Florida. Not since Carl Hiassen at his peak has anyone captured the pothole-marred, driving-impaired, and geriatric-dominated zaniness as well as the new master of the comic crime novel, Steve Forman.”
—Jon Land, bestselling author of Strong Enough to Die
“Eddie Perlmutter is a high testosterone, no-nonsense detective with a tender core who makes turning sixty a carnal, tropical ride.”
—Andrew Gross, New York Times bestselling author
“Steve Forman is a brutally funny writer. His no-nonsense, unadorned style begs comparison to Dashiell Hammett, but Hammett’s humor at its darkest never hit home this hard. Reading of Eddie Perlmutter’s exploits is like rolling in an aisle paved with broken glass and wanting to do it all over again two minutes later.”
“If my experience reading Boca Knights is any indication of those to follow, I am personally going to have a sleeping problem. I read the book in two nights. Intending to just glance through the first few pages, I read no fewer than 14 chapters the first night, finally getting to sleep at 1:30 am, then turned the last of its 331 pages at 2:15 the next morning!”
—Nils A. Shapiro, book reviewer
