Michael Baron
I grew up in the New York area and I’ve lived there my entire life. I worked in retail and taught high school English before I got my first book contract. I have gotten several additional book contracts since then, which is fortunate because I didn’t have the patience to work in retail and, while I quite enjoyed teaching, my approach was a bit too unconventional for most school systems. One school administrator told me that, “there are more important things than being a dynamic teacher.” Since I couldn’t name any of those things (at least in the context of school), I figured I didn’t have a long-term future in the profession. Hence, I became a writer, where I believe people appreciate a certain level of dynamism.
Though I started with nonfiction, I have always loved fiction and I have always wanted to write it. I’ve always had a particular affection for love stories. In fact, the very first book-length thing I ever wrote, when I was thirteen, was a love story. Mind you, it was the kind of love story that a thirteen-year-old boy would write, but it was a love story nonetheless. I have a deep passion for writing about relationships – family relationships, working relationships, friendships, and, of course, romantic relationships – and I can only truly explore this by writing fiction. These novels have given me a way to voice the millions of things running through my head.
My wife and kids are the center of my life. My wife is the inspiration for all of my love stories and my children enthrall me, challenge me, and keep me moving. One of the primary reasons I wrote my first novel, When You Went Away was that I wanted to write about being a father. Aside from my family, I have a few other burning passions. I’m a pop culture junkie with an especially strong interest in music, I love fine food (and any restaurant shaped like a hot dog), and I read far too many sports blogs for my own good.
You might have noticed that I haven't published a photo of myself. This isn't because I'm involved in the Witness Protection program or because I have an innate fear of cameras. It's because Michael Baron is a pseudonym. I'm writing these novels “undercover” because they're not entirely compatible with the nonfiction books I write and I didn't want to confuse readers. We're all different people sometimes, right? I just decided to give my alter ego another name.
My third novel, The Journey Home, has just come out. It’s a love story, too. Naturally.
“Maybe the heart is like an expandable file, filling to accommodate everything you need to carry with you.”
“We are forever, right?" Melissa Said. "Absolutely forever. There is nothing that could ever take me away from you," I said with more certainty than I'd said anything in my life.”
“It's not the instrument that makes the music beautiful - it's the musician.”
“She was a novel whose plot became more interesting as I delved deeper into the book.”
“It's so easy to for tragedy to defeat you. It's seductive in the way that I heard freezing to death is. Being consumed by grief is in many ways much more comfortable than battling your way out of it - especially when you realize that no matter how hard you fight you can't reverse the situation you're grieving over. But it's so important to engage in the battle anyway. It's really the only way to stay alive.”
“It's important that you identify what the best things are in your life. The things that do more than just get you through the day. The things that make you want the next day to come. And once you identify those things, it's critical that you nurture them and keep them strong.”
“Since then, I've had these little periods when everything seems okay. I had another one last night, which I guess is why I'm writing you about this now. It's not that I don't understand that life has to continue, and it's not that I thought that there would never be a point when I could laugh easily or simply have a good time again. But these feelings don't last and they still seem unnatural to me. Not when I have them - at that point, they seem amazingly natural - but afterward. If you and I were going through this together, I'm sure we would talk about that a lot. I'd like to believe we would help each other out, that we would get through this together.”
“You don't tolerate parenthood. You don't survive it. You grow with it.”
“You're gonna be a freaking appendage in their lives. They'll have a mother and an appendage.”