More About the Author
Fil Lewitt was born in Boston in 1941, and grew up in Nashua, NH, at that time a small city of 35,000. He attended Mt. Pleasant St. Elementary School. He was a talker, an athlete, and an oddball from his early years. Went to Brown University, quit after one year and became a beatnik in San Francisco in 1959-60 at the end of that era, went back and graduated, owned a bookstore in Provincetown for a summer, got busted for grass when it was still illegal, beat it, and then beat it back to northern California, where he could now become a sort of hippie.
Grad school at SF State in '66-'67, right at the right time. Bought an old farm in Mendocino City, CA and learned how to design and build wood houses, and keep animals, a fruit orchard, and vegetables. In 1970 turned it into a Zen Buddhist commune which lasted until 1984. His Zen master, Dainin Katagiri-roshi, queried by Fil about whether to sell the Farm and stay in Japan as a professor, told him, "Not how long, how good."
Lay monk at Tassajara Zen Monastery in the Ventana Wilderness behind Big Sur in 1972. Head Gardener at the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon St. in New Orleans in 1974. Turned 33 on Mardi Gras day, living in the Quarter, walked out with his girlfriend that morning and first sight was a guy from the back, complete outfit of black chaps, black leather vest, black cowboy hat, boots... and nothing else, just a bare butt.
Lived on and off at Big River Farm Sangha. Taught prisoners creative writing at Parlin Fork Conservation Camp, best writing class he ever taught, because they all had interesting stories to tell. Washed up in Japan, and became a prof. Lasted over 30 years, because whenever he wasn't teaching he was traveling.
Now he lives with his third wife, a Japanese woman (Tom, b. 1977), in Thailand, regrooving, swimming and writing daily, with plenty of quality hammock time for reading. Website: www.raileibeachclub.com. House 20 leads to his personal site.
Three thrillers in a genre he calls lit/pop: First novel, TIGHT, about sexual mores in the 60s, was written in Santa Fe and Paris; second, DEAD WHITE MALES, about a serial murderer in higher education in the 90s, both about and written in Santa Fe, and the third, MILLENNIAL BLUES, about a truly weird millennial cult in New Mexico, written all over the lot. His latest non-fiction book, THE ZEN FOLLIES, is for non-specialists who can laugh; it's about American Zen Buddhism and his relationship with it. A companion volume of poetry, CANYON WREN'S RAG: Selected Poems 1960-2010, is also new in print. And finally another novel, BAD BOY BILL & His Adventures with Naughty Girls, an episodic romance covering the life of a man who many might deplore but is at heart moral and good, is now out and available.
He's presently at work on another novel, KILLER PICTURE POSTCARDS (A Mercy Investigations Novel), which will be finished sometime in 2011.
All of his books are available through Amazon.com.
Always happy to hear from readers; at least it means they might have bought his novels.
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