Writers4Higher: Writers4Higher features author Bob Ieva

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Writers4Higher features author Bob Ieva

Hi, Bob Ieva. Welcome to Writers4Higher.

Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. I grew up in the '40s and '50s in the Bay Ridge Area of Brooklyn. There are four sections in that area, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, and Bensonhurst. Most of the big families came from those areas.

I moved to Long Island, with my family, when I was 17.

My father and my Godfather introduced me to the teamsters and I started driving semis, and also became an automotive technician.

I didn’t start writing until I was 71 when a friend asked me to write a story about myself. She told me she would put it in book form.

I wrote the first three books in five months and loved it. These are works of fiction and in the organized crime family genre. Those first three books are, The Hitman, The Franchise and The Final Offer. Not long after I was introduced, by another friend of mine, to a great publishing company, DocUmeant Publishing in New York City. Ginger Marks, my publisher, is the owner. I asked her to put these three stories into one book and it is titled, The Other Brooklyn, and we named the series, The Joey Toranetti Series. The Other Brooklyn became an award winning number one best seller and also won the national 2015 FAPA Presidents Award. Book four is The New Breed, and my newest, book five in this series, is The Italian Vendetta.

Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

I firmly believe that my series will eventually end up as a TV series. I have a lot of confidence in my tales and believe they are action filled enough to warrant that commercialization.

How do you use your talents/time to help others?

All my life I have helped people build their business and met great people and learned how to understand what people want. They just want to be treated fairly. When I am asked about my writing and what my best piece of advice is for others who want to become published authors my answer is simply, “Everybody has a story to tell, so don’t sell yourself short. Just write it!”

I also own a travel agency where I am known as “The Godfather of Travel” and my goal for my clients is to help them create a great memory. I make their vacation easy to book, pay, and enjoy. That is my sole purpose in life, Make everything as easy as possible for everyone that I meet.