Meeting Other Writers

One thing that I particularly enjoy is meeting other writers. I especially enjoy meeting other writers from other disciplines, because I learn from comparing their research and writing methodologies with how I do my work.

On December 8, 2004, the 24th anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon, a tragedy occurred here in Columbus. A mentally ill gunman rushed the stage at a local venue called the Alrosa Villa, shot and killed a prominent thrash metal guitar player named Darrell Abbott, and was going to go after other members of his band, called Damageplan. One of the band’s roadies, a patron, and a member of the Alrosa security team rushed the gunman and tried to take him down and were all killed for their trouble. A special duty Columbus police officer killed the gunman with a single blast of his shotgun, saving countless lives. It was a terrible tragedy, and put the Alrosa Villa and Columbus on the national radar screen, and definitely NOT in a good way.

A fellow from Dayton named Chris Armold spent fourteen months researching and writing a book on this event, titled A Vulgar Display of Power: Courage and Carnage at the Alrosa Villa(the title of the book comes from the title of an album by a metal band called Pantera; Darrell Abbott was one of the founders of Pantera). Chris is a free-lance writer who mainly focuses on heavy metal rock and roll, but this episode obviously intrigued him enough to tackle a major project on it. I saw a piece on the news about the book and decided that I wanted to read it. We stopped by a local Borders yesterday and I was surprised to find that Chris was conducting a booksigning there when we got there.

I had looked the book up on Amazon and saw that Chris had been a master sergeant in the Air Force who’s written a couple of books on military history, and we ended up having a rather lengthy and delightful conversation comparing the differences between true crime writing and military history writing, and also about how different it is being able to speak to witnesses and participants instead of having to rely upon 140 year old documents as I so often have to do. He pointed out that while it’s nice to be able to speak to people first-hand, the downside of that is that there are lots of people who will criticize and pick on any tiny little error. Fortunately, I don’t have that to contend with, but everyone is a critic who will criticize almost anything, so I understand that.

I really enjoyed talking with Chris, particularly when I learned that he had an ancestor who served in the 45th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry of the Ninth Corps who was wounded in action at both Antietam and at tthe Wilderness. Chris has a real interest in the Civil War, and he is knowledgeable about the Civil War. He even expressed an interest in one of my books, which was very flattering. We left it that we would stay in touch, and I hope that happens.

You never know who you’re going to meet at a bookstore….