Martin is originally from Carolina (USA) but he skyped with us from London. There he lives and works as a playwriter, a publisher and archivist for Jim Haynes.
He tolds us about how in 2004, years after he had met Jim for the first time, he got invited through his friend John Calder to an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival. When they came out of the event, everyone started to congregate in one of the tables of the coffee shops around…
“Suddenly I found myself surrounded with Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel laureates,… it was unbelievable! So I just sat there and absorb every second of the conversation. Then out of nowhere, Jim, who was sitting behind me actually, saw an agent across the way; and in the middle of a long conversation, again, Pulitzer Prize winners discussing macro-economics or… stuff that I couldn’t even grasp,… but he looked across, he saw this book agent and said aloud, ‘Hey! Stephanie! Martin’s got a manuscript! Why don’t you give him a book deal!?‘. And the whole place stopped. I could have crawled under my seat and die; and he enjoyed every second of it! But the truth of the matter is… why not!? That’s the way Jim is, you know? Why not ask these incredibly ridiculous questions for incredibly positive reasons?? That’s what really opened up my head a little bit.”
Thanks Martin for sharing these hilarious stories with us!
Meeting Jim 