Our thanks to the prolific and talented Albrecht Behmel for today’s warm remembrance. Albrecht started his writing career in 1999 in Berlin. He has published numerous non-fiction works, novels, and award-winning radio plays. He lives in the German Black Forest with his wife, Afraa, and a son. He founded a literary prize, SAMIEL AWARD, for bad guys/antagonists in fiction. Read about the award — and more here: www.behmel.de
I never met Blake in person. I lived in Berlin at the time and didn’t travel to the US at lot. But as a professional writer (novels mainly), I knew about the Cat! Back then, I was researching great titles for novels and films. So I called Blake and we started brainstorming right away — what a great and inspiring experience. I never regretted the outrageously high phone bill later. It was worth every cent.
One thing that I will always remember was this: We talked about the fact that a good title and tagline should always be fun to pronounce, too. A phonetical roller coaster like “The snobs against the slobs!” (of Caddyshack) or a title like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which sounds like the first words of a great beat poem — and maybe they are? A title needs rhythm, like everything else that matters in life.
We stayed in touch. In our last conversation, I still have the message, Blake encouraged me to compose a book about bad guys, movie antagonists (one of my obsessions and blogging subjects), and I started writing. I finished the 950-page manuscript this summer. I am going to dedicate it to Blake.
