The Reading Warehouse

Don't Quit Your Day Job: The Adventures of a Midlist Author, is a memoir recounting the five-decade writing career of Michael Fedo, whose books have not attained best-seller status, despite receiving mostly favorable reviews in publications such as The New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, among others. Rather than complaining, however, the author points out that while few authors earn a middle-class income from writing, aspiring writers can carve out a satisfying niche through diligence. Rich in anecdotes, the author encounters celebrities: James Stewart, Cloris Leachman; the late Lorenzo Music, Richard Wilber, and Harry Golden. He also tells of the New York Times assistant financial editor who didn't know what Workers Compensation was, magazine fact checkers who questioned details in his satirical fiction. This book should engage general readers curious about the literary life of a workaday writer, as well as aspiring authors-in-waiting.