Daniel Ginsberg grew up in the East New York and East Flatbush sections of Brooklyn. He graduated from The School of Visual Arts before serving in the Army as a military policeman and criminal photographer. Returning to civilian life, he became a New York City fashion photographer before enrolling at Louisiana State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s in reproductive physiology. He and his wife, Patsy, live in Denver, where he writes, works in his studio and takes long walks with his dog, Brewzer.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory – what’s it about and what inspired you to write it?
Daniel Ginsberg: In book one of my “Banty Conners Trilogy,” SVU Detective Banty Conners and her partner, Phil Berman, accidentally notice an anomaly in the young children on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan that gets them gunned down. Without giving too much of the plot away, international child smuggling and greed are two crimes that have always irked me.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?
Ginsberg: The excerpt I’ve selected occurs about midway in the book. I believe it gives the reader a fair amount of backstory, as well as a snippet of the intrigue that is to come.
SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Ginsberg: “A Well Too Full” is based on two true events that occurred some 60 years apart and on two different continents. Their stories, coupled with my experiences working with Army Criminal Investigations in Asia, made for a scenario I felt needed telling.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Ginsberg: Writing this trilogy became very personal. As I continued to research the subject, I became more and more aware of just how prevalent child smuggling continues to be around the world and just how profitable it has become.
“A Well Too Full”
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SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Ginsberg: Book three, “A Well Too Full,” presented considerable emotional challenges. As a father and ethical person, I found it difficult to write from the perspective of the unethical characters. There were moments, I wanted to make them disappear.
SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book?
Ginsberg: First and foremost, I hope readers come away with a sense of just what lengths a detective will go to when working on a case. And, too, I believe people who do not speak out against evil become complicit to that evil.
SunLit: If you were a recently retired, disabled NYPD detective and brought back to solve a cold case involving an infant Baby Doe, to what lengths would you go to uncover the truth?
Ginsberg: Me, I’d be like a dog with a bone and chew it down until I got to the truth of the case…no matter what.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Ginsberg: My next project, “Wilhelmina,” begins a year or two prior to the Civil War on a plantation in northern Virginia. Having inherited The Myrtles from her recently deceased father, Wilhelmina soon learns the true nature of her identity. What transpires, and Wilhelmina’s decisions, reshape the concept of a slave-owning, southern planter and are, perhaps, what should have occurred, but may never have.
A few more quick items
Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: “The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter”
First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: I was a non-reader.
Best writing advice you’ve ever received: Write what you know.
Favorite fictional literary character: Yoshii Toranaga Noh Minowara (“Shōgun”)
Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): A good, old-fashioned romance
Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: Print…definitely
One book you’ve read multiple times: “Shōgun”
Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: The clown-head squeezy stress toy my daughter bought me
Best antidote for writer’s block: A solitary walk and an over-active imagination
Most valuable beta reader: My wife and daughter