Writer Albrecht Behmel
Writer Albrecht Behmel

Our thanks to the prolific and talented Albrecht Behmel for today’s warm remembrance. Albrecht started his writing career in 1999 in Berlin. He has published numerous non-fiction works, novels, and award-winning radio plays. He lives in the German Black Forest with his wife, Afraa, and a son. He founded a literary prize, SAMIEL AWARD, for bad guys/antagonists in fiction. Read about the award — and more here: www.behmel.de

I never met Blake in person. I lived in Berlin at the time and didn’t travel to the US at lot. But as a professional writer (novels mainly), I knew about the Cat! Back then, I was researching great titles for novels and films. So I called Blake and we started brainstorming right away — what a great and inspiring experience. I never regretted the outrageously high phone bill later. It was worth every cent.

One thing that I will always remember was this: We talked about the fact that a good title and tagline should always be fun to pronounce, too. A phonetical roller coaster like “The snobs against the slobs!” (of Caddyshack) or a title like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which sounds like the first words of a great beat poem — and maybe they are? A title needs rhythm, like everything else that matters in life.

We stayed in touch. In our last conversation, I still have the message, Blake encouraged me to compose a book about bad guys, movie antagonists (one of my obsessions and blogging subjects), and I started writing. I finished the 950-page manuscript this summer. I am going to dedicate it to Blake.

The cover of a video game Albrecht wrote
The cover of a video game Albrecht wrote
the cover of another Albrect novel
The cover of another Albrecht novel
the cover of one of Albrecht's novels
The cover of one of Albrecht’s novels