(This article originally appeared in the August 2023 issue of the Peninsula Post.)
If the publishing stars align just right this year, local author Mark Hannon will see two of his books in print. Add to that a short story due out this fall in the award-winning Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and 2023 could be a watershed year for the one-time firefighter, tugboat deckhand, and substitute teacher from Locust Point.
Mark started writing stories over 40 years ago, but only recently have publishers’ acceptance letters started to emerge from the deluge of rejections. His first book, Every Man for Himself (Apprentice House), a crime novel based in his hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., appeared in 2016, followed by The Vultures (Apprentice House) in 2020. His first nonfiction book, The Fire Laddies (M. T. Publishing), an in-depth history of the Baltimore City Fire Department just before the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, came out this summer. And his latest novel, Dunleavy, was published in September by Encircle Publications.
The retired firefighter (20 years with Prince George’s and Montgomery counties) has lived with his wife on E. Fort Avenue for 26 years, where they raised two children. I caught up with Mark in July over beers on the patio of Diamondback Brewing Co. to talk about his career, Baltimore history, and the long road to getting published. – Steve Cole
How did you get into firefighting as a career?
I was in college in New York City and living in the Bronx. I knew that a degree wasn’t going to get me a job that I was interested in. One night, I was at a party in a high-rise, looking out over all the five-story walk-ups in the South Bronx. I remember seeing seven fires burning at once. I said, I gotta get in on this. So I began traveling around the country looking for a firefighting job. This was in the late 70s when jobs in fire and police departments were pretty rare. I eventually got a job down here, in Maryland.
When did you first try your hand at writing for publication?
That was also when I was in college. I kept hearing great stories of urban life and I started writing them down. Later, when I was living in Buffalo and tending bar, I heard even more good stories. Then I started trying to sell them to magazines. They were all rejected. I got my first short story published in the late 1990s by a magazine here in Baltimore called Scribble. I don’t think it exists anymore. They paid me 14 dollars and change, and I was happy as a clam. I have a framed copy of that check.
And how did you make the leap to writing novels?
I got the idea for my first novel, Every Man for Himself, when I was tending bar in Buffalo and working for a vending company. The story is about pinball racketeering in the 1950s. They used to gamble on pinball machines, very much like how people gamble on video poker now. I started writing it in 1980. Wrote about 20 pages. Threw it out. A year later, I got about 30 pages in. Threw it out. Eventually I got up to 50, 60 pages. Threw it out. I think it was the eighth time I started it, around 2014, that I said I’ve got to do something here! So I gave it another shot, starting from scratch. I got up to 70 pages or so and I said, I think this is working. The manuscript was rejected 92 times.
Who are some crime novelists you admire?
George V. Higgins would be at the top of the list. He wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which was made into a movie in the 1970s. I read all his novels. Another is George Pelecanos from D.C. I read one of his books, The Big Blowdown, about crooks in D.C. in the 1940s, about the time I was writing my first book about crooks in Buffalo in the 1950s. I was thinking, could I really get away with writing about this era? And I read his book and said, if he could do it, I can do it.
The Fire Laddies is a deep dive into the firefighting profession in Baltimore during a narrow window in time, 1900-1904, when fire engines were still being pulled by horses. How did that book come about?
Back in 2000, I started reading articles about the old days in the fire department and what it was like. I thought I could make a neat magazine article about this. Then a friend of mine asked if I’d talked to (retired Deputy Fire Chief Gary) Frederick, (Captain) Eddie Schwartz, or (Lieutenant Joseph) Cavanagh. So I visited these guys. They lived and breathed this stuff and had great private collections of documents about developments in equipment, personnel, and politics. I had an immense amount of material to work with.
Why did you choose to focus the book on the period 1900 to 1904?
One of the reasons to begin in 1900 was that’s when they first began to give civil service tests for city jobs. Things were changing in Baltimore City. A Republican reform movement had been elected a few years earlier. There started to be less patronage, which was kind of a sea change in how things were going to be run.
I also wanted to describe how the men would have fought fires in the period of the Great Baltimore Fire. It was an interesting phase of firefighting life. For example, you had 12 or more guys living in a firehouse 24/7 with one day off a week. They got three hours a day off for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when they could leave the firehouse. They didn’t have a second shift here until the 1920s.
Was it more dangerous fighting fires at the start of the 20th century than at the end of the century when you were a firefighter?
I’m not sure if there were more fatalities back then, but their life spans were a lot shorter. They had no breathing apparatus, and their protective equipment was minimal. Smoke inhalation and back injuries took their toll. And going from 0 to 60 on a regular basis like you do when the bells hit, even for someone who’s in good shape, is not good for your heart and wears it out quicker. That could knock 5 or 10 years off your life.
Are you working on any new writing projects now?
I have a first draft of another Buffalo novel. It’s set in the early 1990s. The city has gone to declining Rust Belt and just keeps getting worse and worse. Crack has hit Buffalo. I sent the draft off to my two editors. Now I’ve got to rip it apart.
I’m also working on another idea. In The Vultures, there’s a character who’s a wounded Vietman vet. He’s a counselor at the V.A. and he’s kind of getting burned out and wants to do something else. That’s just an outline right now.
For more information on Mark’s writing, visit markhannonbooks.com.
South Baltimore Peninsula Post 