Tom Stanton

Dear Readers: Well, we both know who's posting this, so allow me to skip the charade of the third-person bio and just casually tell you a little about myself.I feel fortunate to have been writing professionally since age 18, beginning back in the final year of Jimmy Carter's presidency, when I sported a poorly executed, Peter Frampton-inspired perm. Decades on, my hair is gone, but writing remains central to my life. I've been a reporter, editor, publisher and, more recently, an author and journalism professor (Go University of Detroit Mercy Titans!). If you know me for my books, it's likely for the Tiger Stadium memoir The Final Season, the Quill Award finalist Ty and The Babe or the feverishly publicized Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America. My forthcoming book is Terror in the City of Champions, a true story set in mid-1930s Detroit.OK, enough of the formal stuff. Some things you might be interested to know:* Elton John's music has been a big part of my life since "Bennie and the Jets," which is no excuse for accidentally setting off one of his legendary tantrums backstage one evening. (My fault.)* I drink too many ... Tim Hortons Ice Caps.* The three biggest thrills to come my way due to book writing: going with Elmore Leonard to a Detroit Tigers baseball game, hearing Alec Baldwin read an excerpt from one of my books on television and receiving an unexpected phone call from one of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy. * My eternally kind wife and I care for four feral cats -- Pumpkin, Sox, Frisco and Panther -- who dictate our schedule.* When I travel, I inevitably wind up searching out bookstores and libraries. (We probably have that in common.)* One of my uncles, Edward Stanton, was a photographer in Detroit in the 1930s, and his shots of black Detroit can be found here: http://reuther.wayne.edu/image/tid/1983