Author Rita Schiano with Painting The Invisible Man

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rita Available at http://www.reededwards.com My web site: http://www.ritaschiano.com Publisher’s web site: http://www.reededwards.com My Blog: Rita’s Not-So-Daily Word http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rita My BTR show: “Talk To Me...Conversations With Creative, Unconventional People” Books: Painting the Invisible Man - http://www.paintingtheinvisibleman.com In 2001, while researching the online archives of her hometown newspaper for a client, freelance writer Rita Schiano made a keying error—a simple mistake that led her to a path she'd been avoiding most of her life; on a journey inside the world of her father, killed gangland-style more than two decades ago. Schiano turned that difficult journey into an engrossing novel. Painting The Invisible Man is a poignant, often hilarious coming of age story that explores the complex dynamics of growing up in an Italian family on the fringe of the Mafia. Lesa, here is an excerpt from and interview to give you background. Q: The disclaimer on the copyright page indicates that Painting The Invisible Man is based on a known event. Yes, that's true. The story is influenced by the 1976 murder of my father. Like the character Anna, I was researching the archives of my hometown newspaper for a client, and I made a keying error. I accidentally charged ten articles instead of one to my credit card. After retrieving my client's news article, I began typing in names of people I knew that still lived in Syracuse. Why I typed my father's name, I'll never know. Q: What did you find? I found thirty-seven articles from the 1990s that referenced my father. It wouldn't have been all that strange had my father not died in 1976. Q: Was there a particular headline that caught your attention? There was one that mentioned FBI surveillance tapes of the man who was acquitted of my father's murder, bragging about getting away with murder twenty years before. At that moment I knew I had to ex