Although as a boy I was dyslexic, it was never diagnosed. Teachers just thought I was slow and suggested to my mother that she look into manual arts classes for me because they felt I might not actually graduate from high school. After struggling, in eighth grade I had a teacher named Mr. Santelli, who taught Language Arts and Social Studies, a kind of combination of English and history. For whatever reason, he saw something in me that no one else did and upon graduation he made me a bet I couldn’t make the honor roll in high school. In truth, I suspected he was right but took the bet anyway out of a perverse need to prove him wrong. When my first report card arrived, I was stunned to find my name on the honor roll. How could this be? The truth is, my learning disability turned me into an overachiever. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition which causes you to see the world differently. To this day even at a computer keyboard I transpose words, letters and numbers. But the upside is that in order to succeed I have had to invent creative ways to read and remember. There’s a reason the license plate holder on my car reads: “Dyslexics Better Do It.”
Writing takes many forms. I have written both fiction and non-fiction. I’ve been an essayist, a critic, a biographer. I have written for both screen and television. And most recently I have completed my first novel, a contemporary tale of archeology and espionage titled The Exfiltrator which is represented by Murray Weiss of Catalyst Literary Management, NYC. Meanwhile I have begun researching a second. The bottom line is this: writing is an irrational obsession. No one in their right mind should do it. Therefore, welcome to the asylum…
Included below are several examples of my writing. The essays are finished samples. However, due to the fact that standard screenplay format is not fully compatible with the software used to create these pages, the screen samples provide only a taste of the original. If after reading something, you would like to read the entire script or any other screenplay by Garner Simmons found on this site, please contact:
Larry Becsey, Intellectual Property Group: laurence@ipglm.com
To access a writing sample, please click on the appropriate title below:
- The Exfiltrator – A novel by Garner Simmons
- Peckinpah – A Portrait in Montage (Audiobook)
- Two Lions on the Edge of Winter
- Betting on Yourself (Remembering My Father)
- Il Palio (article)
- Tie-Breaker
- The Possession of Edgar Poe
- Poet, Player, Lover, Spy… A Portrait of Shakespeare as a Young Dog
- The Last Druid King