Manistee-linked author publishes first book

Tomaszewski is the son of Randy and Kellie Tomaszewski, of Onekama. He grew up primarily in the Grand Rapids area, but also lived in several other locations where his parents worked in their careers. However, he came to love Manistee as a second home following his frequent trips to this area to visit his grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins ​​over the years.

“My dad’s side of the family has roots in Manistee and that’s where he grew up, so we’ve always had a connection to it as our ancestral home,” Tomaszewski said. “We would always vacation in Manistee to visit family.”

The 27-year-old author’s book “Martin Blackbriar and the Necronomicon” is in the spirit of the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” type books that were favorites of his youth.

“This book was really born out of a mix of two different things,” Tomaszewski said. “I grew up loving reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and all the fantastic things that came out of it. I also loved Stephen King’s work with ‘It’ and ‘The Dark Tower’ and every time those books came out, I realized that it was possible to break with conventions to write your story.

Tomaszewski said the book is about a brother and sister who discover magic and discover a new world together.

He said what also influenced this book was the close relationship he has with his sister, Olivia, whom he considers his hero. It mirrors what comes out of that first novel with the interaction between main characters Martin Blackbriar and his sister Ali, but he said other characters were also based on people and even pets that have been part of his life.

“Olivia has always been the stronger one between the two of us and I admire her tenacity, her courage and her ability to stand up for people when they need it, so I kind of based the characters on us,” he said. -he declares. “The book is about Martin and Ali and their place in the larger world of magic.”

Tomaszewski said both careers in law — he recently graduated from Cooley Law School — and writing have been an interesting journey in his life. He enjoys practicing law, but has always had a passion for becoming an author since a young age.

“I work on the writing process and the act of publishing that comes out of law school,” he said. “It was a very interesting process to learn the law and to understand how to help people in a legal context, but what I was really passionate about since I was a child was writing.”

He said what helped his personal journey was finding a publisher – Long Overdue Publishing in Chicago.

“When I started looking for a publisher, it was very difficult,” Tomaszewski said. “I was very lucky to have one of my dear professors from when I was in college who said she knew someone who had graduated there and was publishing books in Chicago. They helped establish the connection for me and it worked perfectly.

Tomaszewski also explained the reason and origin of his pseudonym.

“…My name Logan Tomaszewski never felt right for the author of this book,” he said. “So I was writing a character name for a mystery book I’m working on and I wrote the letters TC and stopped. I thought that was a good start for a name. Looking around I saw a book on the Arthurian legend and Pendragon came to me.

He said the TC Pendragon name felt right when it hit the pages and he knew it would work with this story.

Tomaszewski also credits both of his parents with instilling in him a true love of literature from an early age by reading to him. It’s something that he says helped him become an author.

“Some of my earliest memories are of my mother reading to me,” Tomaszewski said. “It doesn’t matter what book it was. I just remember the pages turning, her smiling, and me falling in love with literature. That’s when the spark started for me, because I saw that there was a lot of power in the way people told stories.”

He said this concept of how stories can bring things to life really struck him because his late grandfather, Jerome Tomaszewski, died before he knew him.

“I really got to know him, meet him and love him through the stories my family always shared about him,” Tomaszewski said.

His father, Randy, also opened his eyes to books like “The Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” and what they have to offer in the world of fantasy.

“My dad used to read me ‘The Hobbit’, ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter’ which I loved to hear,” he said.

Tomaszewski has written several other books and hopes this will be the first of many to follow in his writing career.

“I work with my editor by browsing others,” Tomaszewski said. “We got on really well and realized that writing is more than just writing a single book. I’ve always been interested in writing and improving my skills.

He said that suddenly a lot of things are now possible for him in the writing world and that the other stories he has written are no longer just a pile of dreams that may or may not be published. Now there is a chance that one day each of them could be printed.

“We have more work to come that will hopefully be published this year and next,” he said. “There is a spin-off of Martin Blackbrier’s book, but some of those books are very different. I also have one that is science fiction and looks at a future world much like the ‘1984’ or ‘Brave New World’ books.

The young author says he tries to write something every day. Sometimes it will be more than other days, but the key is to write continuously to keep the creative juices flowing.

“My dad always says some days I get peanuts and other days I get shellfish,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

However, for now, the writing career he’s dreamed of since he was a kid is on the way, and the road ahead looks bright for more TC Pendragon works to come.

“You only go this far in the process with people behind you who love you, trust you and want to see your stories told,” he said. “If you have a story that you really want to tell, it’s extremely rare that it happens without someone’s help. It’s something to enjoy and enjoy. »

People can find the book locally at Happy Owl Book Store in Manistee and Studio 231 in Elberta. It can also be purchased online from Long Overdue Books at Longoverduebooks.com and on Amazon.