Greg Hatala

My first novel, I LOVE LIKING YOU A LOT, came about because I opened my mouth and inserted my foot.

A number of years ago I was criticizing the books assigned to my high school-age children, based on their own comments, to an acquaintance who also happens to be a Doctor of Education. She challenged me to do better. Approaching my sixties, the time was now or never.

While this is my first novel, it's definitely not the first time my writing has appeared in print for public consumption. For decades, I wrote advertising copy for a number of major brands as well as publicity for professional theater productions. Most recently, I was a columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, one of the largest daily circulation newspapers in the country, and still provide online content for Advance Media.

I also was a finalist in the national 2020 Labute New Theater Festival competition sponsored by the St. Louis Actors Studio with a play I wrote 38 years earlier…and then shoved into a box and forgot about.

The sequel, I LOVE LIKING YOU A LOT MORE, is in the final stages of author editing; work on the third book in the series, I LOVE LOVING YOU A LOT, is also underway. I'm open to suggestions for the title of the fourth book.

Oh, by the way–my doctoral friend thinks I LOVE LIKING YOU A LOT is outstanding. Challenge accepted and crushed like a boss.