THE BIG DAY IS HERE!
Hi, I’m Ken Bachtold and I will have the excitement of seeing my new book Mood Indigo being released today. The first paragraph of this book came to me almost unbidden and the rest of the story just followed, one scene after another. I do not use an outline, each scene from the beginning suggests the scene that should come next. This bothered me, until I read an article about Stephen King – and he doesn’t use an outline either! So I now feel vindicated. As the story is told first by Bill Ward and then by Johnny Desmond, I had to be careful to keep the time sequences in order, and let each one move the progression of the story further when their next section occurred. I had to make sure that when old song star, Sadie’s character was introduced it would fit a timeline where she could have been a contemporary of Dinah Shore and Peggy Lee. At present, I’m working on an entry for Dreamspinner’s States of Love series. As I live in New York, I was very lucky to be able to secure New York as my state! The story is going along just fine. It’s semi-autobiographical, as I came to New York and started my own theater company, A Company of Players, which became its title. As Mood Indigo is the title of my book, I would like to ask you if you have a favorite song of your own. Or, perhaps a singer from the big band era. If so, please let me know! I have a website which you can find by entering www.Ken Bachtold. You can find me on Facebook and I Tweet almost daily. I also have a Tumblr account that at present is being refurbished. I hope you will enjoy Mood Indigo!
Blurb:
What happens when a powerful connection forms between two damaged strangers?
Found injured by the side of a road, Bill Ward suffers from retrograde amnesia. Having no recollection of his past, he feels like a nobody. Romance is definitely not an option for a nobody. Jazz singer and piano player Johnny Desmond, on the other hand, is emotionally dead from the ultimate betrayal. But from the moment their eyes meet, there’s no fighting it, and with their friends’ encouragement, Bill and Johnny decide to get to know each other.
Bill’s memories are hovering at the edge of his mind, tormenting him with fear and doubts about what he has to offer. Johnny also has a past—one that could endanger his life. It might have been love at first sight, but it will take courage and commitment to see it through to love that lasts forever.
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Ken Bachtold Biography
BA & MA from San Francisco State University in Theatre (Acting and Directing) with a minor in Art.
When I constantly had trouble finding the type of book I liked to read, I finally said to myself, “Why don’t you stop moaning and write one yourself?” So I did. I was thrilled to the marrow (literally) when Dreamspinner accepted Seeing the Same Blue. Then followed acceptance of Blue Valentine Blues, part of their Valentine anthology. Next, came acceptance of All By Myself. And, now Mood Indigo is being released. My cup runeth over! All books can be found on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Before that, Outskirts Press published Love Like Lightning – Ten Stories of Love at First Sight, also on Amazon.
My original play, Starting Over (which I also directed), was just staged as part of the Ninth Annual Fresh Fruit Festival here in New York. Audience reaction was terrific. It was one of nine plays accepted out of 60 submitted. It was an MM romance. The blurb in the brochure for the festival read, “A play about love and loss. Griff has recently lost his longtime partner. Can he find happiness with Ben, the new neighbor down the hall? He’s supported by his sister and opposed by his widowed mother, now remarried to a homophobic preacher.”
I’ve also written 5 musicals, book, music and lyrics.
Saloon (loosely suggested by the old melodrama The Drunkard) which opened The Gatetway Dinner Theatre in New Jersey to great reviews (I can forward them if you wish). It was subsequently optioned by Broadway producer Jerry Schloschberg (who, at the time was, producing the revival of On The Town with Bernadette Peters), but a show sluggishly following the old material opened and closed the same night, and he backed off thinking there was now a “stigma” on the material.
The Facts of Life (a musical about War, Prejudice and Aging, circa the ’60s) was written at the BMI Music Workshop, taught by Broadway legend, Lyman Engle, and only after several auditions before acceptance in the class. It was deemed worthy of a staged reading there.
Boo!, based on the old gothic novel The Castle Spectre was done by several regional theatres.
I was hired to doctor a musical based on Iphigenia At Aulis, called The Winds Of Aulis. I changed the name to Dilemma! and wrote a subplot and mostly new lyrics. Although the play was fully backed, it never reached production and I never found out why.
I’ve written and staged numerous night club and cabaret acts and taught singing for the musical stage for 15 years.