Dunford, Warren

Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture

"One of the funniest and most shamelessly entertaining novels around," wrote Now Magazine about Warren Dunford's hilariously off-kilter novel of friendship, artistic ambition, and organized crime. Originally published in Canada to widespread acclaim, Dunford's Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture has finally crossed the border. Stirring elements of screenwriting, thriller fiction, ironic self-examination, and urban street smarts into an oddly invigorating postmodern stew, Dunford's novel drops the reader into the lives of Mitchell Draper, screenwriter/office temp; Ingrid Iversen, painter/coffeehouse manager; and Ramir Martinez, actor/health-food-store clerk as they come face-to-face with their dreams in the last way they expected. Mitchell's sudden and suspicious opportunity to pen the screenplay of a bad "mafia princess" movie for obnoxious film producer Carmen Denver coincides with the opening of a reluctant Ingrid's first exhibit and Ramir's one-man-show. What goes wrong? Lucky for the reader, pretty much everything as mysterious stalkers, threatening phone calls, and old secrets promise to do a lot more than just break up a friendship in what actress Anne Bancroft called "One of the best fun reads of all time!"

"Comic and unexpected ... a far more eloquent meditation on art and dreck than any 5,000-word essay in Harper's. [Dunford] can look forward to a loyal and growing audience."-Paragraph: The Canadian Fiction Review

Warren Dunford has been a professional writer for 17 years; his stories have appeared in Quickies 2, This Magazine, and The Toronto Star as well as numerous men's magazines. He is the owner of Warren Dunford Creative Services, providing copywriting services for a range of corporations. He lives in Toronto, where he is hard at work on the sequel to Soon to be a Major Motion Picture.

Making a Killing: A Novel

Toronto screenwriter Mitchell Draper is down on his luck. He's lost his lackluster job on the kids' show Five Fun Fish, and has a month to wait until his next depressing writing gig begins. In the meantime, he plans to churn out a blockbuster screenplay with all the right elements: sex, violence, money, celebrities, and the supernatural. How fitting, then, that a series of disconcerting visions leads him to the heart of a celebrity murder-suicide of the 1970s that took place in the mansion where his friend Ramir is being drawn into a new religion founded by the charismatic Dr. Bhandari. Surrounded by aging socialites, actors, artists, psychics, and cult leaders, it's hard for Mitchell to tell what's real. But the power of his visions--and the offer of a six-figure contract from a tall, dark, and handsome movie executive--encourages him to find the real culprit behind the long-ago deaths. Witty and well-plotted, with sharply defined characters, Making a Killing is a worthy sequel to the first in this mystery series, Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture. --Regina Marler

When we left him at the end of Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, struggling screenwriter Mitchell Draper was happy to have escaped with his life from his last assignment. But that doesn't stop him from digging into a 20-year-old murder-suicide as meat for a new screenplay that might net him $800,000 from a sexy movie producer who seems just as interested in Mitchell as in his story. Once again, novelist Warren Dunford has created a hilariously satirical study of celebrity culture that pokes good-natured fun both at the insiders and those on the outside desperate to get in.

Also Available by Warren Dunford:

Soon to be a Major Motion Picture

The Scene Stealer (Mitchell Draper Mysteries)