Almost Famous, A Life in and Out of Show Biz (Westgate Press, 1985)
When Teens Were Keen: Freddie Stewart and the Teen Agers of Monogram (Nicholas Lawrence Press, 2005)
As Alone As I Want To Be (Adelaide, 2018)
Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood (Adelaide, 2021)
Bio:
Pam Munter has authored several books including When Teens Were Keen: Freddie Stewart and The Teen Agers of Monogram, Almost Famous, and As Alone As I Want To Be. She’s a former clinical psychologist, performer and film historian. Her essays, book reviews and short stories have appeared in more than 150 publications. Her play, “Life Without” was nominated for Outstanding Original Writing by the Desert Theatre League and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Pam has an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts, her sixth college degree. She lives in Palm Desert, CA.
Why do you write in the genre that you do?
All of my books have touched on Hollywood in some way. Fading Fame is the first full-length work of fiction. It has been both fun and challenging to insert myself into the possible thinking of iconic women of a certain age who worked in an industry I adore. How did they navigate the perilous waters of the inherent sexism in show business and what were the costs? Such speculation can only life in the world of fiction.
How has writing changed/altered your life?
It was a writer who convinced me to go to college at all! I can’t remember when I wasn’t writing something – a neighborhood newspaper when I was nine, a radio drama at 12. As a memoirist, writing provided a platform to explore my own history, even while discovering the surprising universality of the struggles. In Fading Fame, writing allowed me to fuse my love for an imagined old Hollywood while integrating the wisdom acquired as a former clinical psychologist.
Who are your favorite authors and why?
Robert Caro: a consummate and prodigious researcher, and an expert translator of information into fascinating works. I’d read anything he wrote.
Meghan Dahm: an agile essayist with the enviable facility to superimpose a tart sense of humor on to the sadness of her life experiences.
Sheila Weller: a thorough biographer with the capacity to delve deeper into stories about famous people we thought we knew, bringing them alive in the process.
Vivian Gornick: an essayist who deftly seduces her reader into her world in New York, making us feel a lucky accompanist on her journey.
(and so many more!)
Do you believe that audiobooks are the wave of the future, more of a passing fad, or somewhere in between and why?
Technology is changing, and we are, after all, an ADD society. Will people continue to take the time to sit and listen to a book, rather than read it in increments? Perhaps in the future, audiobooks will become like newspapers, alive for a specific audience. For me, I prefer an ebook as I find a voice reading to me distracting and soporific, demanding too much of me. It’s easier to pick up and put down, too.
What is your opinion of mainstream/corporate bookstores?
With the decline in the mom-and-pop bookstores, Amazon, et al, serve a valuable function for an increasing part of the population. The pandemic has underscored their dominance. More sales will likely be done online, however, even if the website is corporate.
What have you found to be a good marketing tool? A bad one?
Social media is the way to go. Any way a writer can instantly reach a large audience is a bonus. Print media has become almost an anachronism, serving a diminishing population and not cost-effective.
Do you believe writing should be censored – that some topics should remain taboo?
No and no. But I think when topics potentially offend, trigger warnings would be appropriate.
