Bestselling author David Catalano chatted about his book “Knights, Pirates, Outlaws, and One Big Happy Ending.”
Book Description
You can be a valiant knight, a sly pirate, or even a wild outlaw, but the best stories are the stories we make of our lives with our loved ones.
David Benelli lives a happy life as an inspiring English teacher and an aspiring author. He soon finds his life taking a big turn when his beautiful wife, Aida, is diagnosed with cancer. As Aida fights her ailment, David must raise their son, Aaron, and deal with the hardships of his wife’s illness.
As David struggles to do all the right things for his son, he finds the only way to help Aida is to take her on a series of adventures by writing stories for her. These tales span great battlefields, vast seas, and scorching deserts. In all his stories, David always finds a happy ending, but will he be able to find the same happy ending in his own life?
All the author’s profits from the book will be sent to low-income families to assist with cancer care costs.
Biography
David Catalano was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. He graduated from San Jose State University, California, with his Bachelors of Science degree in Business Management while playing on a full football scholarship. He completed his master’s degree in counseling at the University of Arizona while playing his final year of college football. His passion is to help others overcome obstacles through his writing.
Q & A interview
‘Knights, Pirates, Outlaws, and One Big Happy Ending’ is a fantastic read and has been quite popular with readers and reviewers. Every book has a story about its creation, what’s the story behind this rather epic book?
I wrote this book while studying to be a counselor. I wanted to write a story that showed how to love through hard times even when life doesn’t always seem like a happy love story.
Love is often defined as a feeling, but I wanted to write a story that showed love as a choice. While serving in the church, I met with people who were struggling with grief or different difficult circumstances and admired the way they were able to love faithfully through these trials. I saw firsthand the difficulty of loving through sickness and having to learn to choose loving someone even when it’s hard.
Through Christ, I believe even through such trials we can still experience happy endings and find hope. I chose to pursue this book even more after watching my pastor’s wife pass away from cancer and seeing his love for her through the trial and finding joy after.
I want this story to bring hope and encouragement to those who may be facing similar struggles.
When fans finish ‘Knights, Pirates, Outlaws, and One Big Happy Ending’ what do you hope they take away from your book?
I have several takeaways I hope to give to my audience. First is for us to learn how to love even when the circumstances are hard.
Life isn’t always easy and we aren’t perfect, but we can learn to love and be patient. A second takeaway is to learn that even when times are hard there is always hope and joy to be found, especially when we know Christ.
I believe God can use our difficult circumstances to inspire and bring hope to others. The third takeaway is to know that life is full of adventure even if our own stories seem less adventurous than the movies we watch and the books we read.
All your proceeds from the book sales are going toward helping low-income families to assist with cancer care costs, which is awesome. Can you talk about why this cause is so important to you?
When I played football in college, we got the opportunity to visit the Diamond Children’s Medical Center. While volunteering, I met a number of young children and families struggling with cancer.
I believe it is hard enough to deal with the difficulty of seeing a loved one sick, but it can be even more of a burden not having enough money to provide for your family during these tough situations.
My hope is to provide support for these families and bring awareness to helping those who may be experiencing these financial burdens.
‘Knights, Pirates, Outlaws, and One Big Happy Ending’ is your first book. What was one of the challenges you faced writing it, and conversely one of your successes?
I love writing, but I am not the most talented writer. I wrote this book to challenge myself and refine my God-given gift of writing. I had never written a story this big before and putting it together to publish took a lot of work.
One of my biggest challenges was facing the fact that people would see a vulnerable side of me in this book. This book reveals parts of my own struggles and my faith in Christ as well as places my writing in a place for all to see and critique.
Despite this vulnerability, however, the vulnerability and realness revealed in this book has conversely been a success in inspiring a number of people who have read it.
Through the tears of many of my readers, I have been given the opportunity to share in the struggles and provide encouragement to those who relate to the characters of my book.
This book has been a huge hit with fans. Do you have another book or project in the works you can tell us about?
Absolutely! First, I just want to thank everyone who read this book and has encouraged me to write. I know I’m not the best writer, but I’m willing to grow in my writing and God-given gifts of storytelling. After writing this book, I began another one, but never completed it.
After several years of growing in my relationship with Christ, I decided to revisit my 2nd book and use it as an opportunity to give a story that would encourage people to grow in good character and see faith in action. My second book is called “The Legend of Titus Glorious: The Legion” and is an Action/Adventure book based on the adventures of a poor farm boy and a royal princess who live in a world where commoners and royalty have no place
together. The story tells of a young boy rising to become a warrior to bring peace between the Seven Kingdoms. It is still in the editing process.
What is your favorite way to celebrate when you finish a new book?
I love Jesus and I love pizza. I’m pretty sure I ate a whole pizza after completing my first book. I then took a big much-needed nap to celebrate.
His book “Knights, Pirates, Outlaws, and One Big Happy Ending” is available on Amazon.
