Carmelo Pietro Stella … June 1, 1956 — ????

Charlie was born in Manhattan and raised in Canarsie, Brooklyn.  He attended Minot State College in North Dakota where he met the most influential person in his life, Dave Gresham.  Dave introduced Charlie to George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle and education in general, something Charlie was very good at avoiding the first 17 years of his life.

“I never met anyone as smart as Dave,” Charlie says.  “The guy knew everything and anything.  He once spotted a bird that had landed on a tree branch outside his office window and got all excited.  He jumped out of his chair, pointed and named the thing.  I nearly shit myself.  Dave is a true renaissance man.  The guy builds houses, he builds boats, he sails boats without the motor … he built some gizmo in his yard once that smoked the fish he caught on Lake Sakakawea … he was a seeded tennis player in North Dakota and he coached tennis at the college.  He and his wife, Linda (who was the Spanish chair at the college) didn’t do so badly with their kids either; two Harvard graduates and a Chemistry Ph.D. from the Air Force Academy.  Unbelievable.  Dave is why I finally decided to get serious with school.  Not just writing.  Everything.  Being around the guy made me want to learn.”

Charlie started writing plays while working two jobs (window cleaning early mornings after word processing on a midnight shift).  He enjoyed writing dialogue driven material but after dealing with a couple of theatre groups, he thought it best to work solo in the future.

“Actor’s Equity sent me a guy couldn’t remember his lines,” Charlie said.  “I hope the guy got hired for a movie and the camera guy forgot to bring film.”

Knockaround life … it provided the coin that paid the freight for two and three households over an 18-year period.

Charlie says:  “I had a brief delusional period when I wanted to pursue that life but fortunately came to my senses way short of that goal.  It wasn’t half as dramatic as the fiction I write, but it did provide a ton of background that I get to try and make interesting in crime novels.  Never sell anybody involved in a street life short.  They aren’t all thugs.  Some of those guys would run Wall Street a lot more efficiently than the geniuses that just sunk the economy.  Most of the guys I knew were trying to make ends meet.  They had the same dreams as everybody else.  Many were hustling to send their kids to college.”

Charlie was married a few times after his first divorce.  He wasn’t good at it until he met his current wife, Ann Marie Cucci-Stella.

Kids … Charlie has three.  Two talk to him.

Knucksline … while working as a word processor at a Marketing Research Firm back in the day, Charlie started sending company-wide emails he labeled “Knucksline”.  Eventually he put Knucksline into a hard copy booklet.  It is currently called Temporary Knucksline.

And the DOC says … speaking of marketing research and blogs, the DOC is also an expert marksmen (and general gun/knife nut) who is a terrific writer and as sharp as razor blades with his words.  He’s shooting from the same porch as Sarah Palin (from where she saw Russia) and he’s always funny (usually at Charlie or President Obama’s expense).  DOC is the undisputed star of Temporary Knucksline.

Powerlifting … Charlie started powerlifting in college in North Dakota and has gone in and out of it since.  He has a decent bench-press, he had an okay dead lift but his squat was always pathetic.  Last year, at 53, he decided he was ready to start the process all over again and destroyed what was left of his right knee.  When preparing for a meet, he wakes up at 3:00 a.m. two days during the week so he doesn’t have to deal with the loud, annoying music played at the gym when it is crowded during the evening.  Charlie lifted in three meets over the last two years (2009-2010) and wasn’t embarrassed too badly.

He does not shave his back.

Drums … Charlie had once been a part of a band called Arm & Hammer (in high school) with Pete Durso (guitar) and Avi Wolfe (bass), and last year (July ’09) Charlie met up with Pete in North Carolina to jam at the Cape Fear Blues Festival.  Charlie has DW Drums and loves them obsessively.  He bought the kit from Cymbal Fusion in Texas, a drum store he very highly recommends (ask for Erik).

His Beloved New York State Buffalo Bills … once a season ticket holder at Shea Stadium for the New York Jets, Charlie turned to the only New York team left when the New York J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets became the New Jersey Y-E-T-S, Yets, Yets, Yets.

Politics … Charlie classifies himself as a curmudgeon and refuses to reward either major political party ever again.  Charlie can’t stand voting “the lesser of two evils” from either the right or left and likes the Latin phrase (from R.F. Delderfield’s To Serve Them All My Days): “Tuta petant alii.  Fortuna miserrima …” (“Let others seek what is safe.  Safe is the worst of fortune; for the fear of any worse event is taken away”).

Writing … Why he does it?  #1) it’s how he landed the Principessa Ann Marie (Cucci-Stella); #2) it keeps him out of trouble (why Momma Stella encourages him) and #3) he can sit while doing it.  Charlie is excited about working with his new publisher, Greg Shepard at Starkhouse Press and has dedicated Johnny Porno to Ed Gorman for hooking him up (and saving him from crime writing oblivion).  Johnny Porno will be Starkhouse’s first original publication.

Peter Skutches … Charlie’s maestro (editor) on all six of his crime novels and most of his short stories (crime and otherwise).  Peter is more than just an editor – he’s family to both Charlie and Ann Marie.  They love the guy.

Music … Charlie loves to listen to opera and classical music first and foremost.  Don Giovanni remains his favorite opera with Tristan & Isolde a very close second and Tosca a close third.  Beethoven remains his favorite composer, but Mahler’s Titan is his favorite symphony.  Charlie is also a huge CREAM fan, loves most blues tunes and big bands and enjoys playing drums to pretty much all of it.  Peter Erskine is his favorite drummer.

Rigoletto … Charlie and Ann Marie’s beloved pooch … forgetaboutit, a great dog.

Work Background … Charlie delivered papers, unloaded watermelons, cooked at McDonalds, cleaned dishes at a catering hall, worked in a cardboard factory, rolled posters, worked in his father’s head shop, was a bouncer, worked security, buffed hallways, cleaned apartments, humped sheetrock, cleaned windows, was a word processing operator-supervisor-manager and director, coached football, has had novels published here, Russia, Italy and the UK, and did that knockaround stuff for 18 years.  He currently works as a word processing operator, except now the industry calls that a Document Services Specialist.  Charlie says: "What we really are is glorified typists."