Many years ago, when I had dreams of athletic glory, I used to box and I started learning the fistic science at Gleason’s Gym in N.Y. when they were located on West 30th Street in what was then the fur district. My trainer was Sammy Morgan, who harkened back to the days of Benny Leonard, Mike McTigue and Battling Siki. I learned a lot from him, and not just how to throw hands either. After I would finish working out, I would watch the other fighters train and listen to the stories from Sammy and the other trainers, and from them came the inspiration for “Doing Business.”
My crime and mystery fiction influences are several, but the top three are probably George V. Higgins, George Pelicanos and Colson Whitehead. Besides crime and mystery, I read a lot of history, particularly recent American urban history which gives me a lot of good ideas for stories. For example, all three of my three novels are based on actual events in my hometown of Buffalo. On TV, lately, I’ve been watching Endeavor, the latest Sylvester Stallone series Tulsa King and the Jesse Stone movies.
I’m a retired firefighter, and after that I worked as a deckhand on tugboats and taught firefighting to mariners. Now I just write, although I still keep my hand in the maritime trade by volunteering on the World War II Liberty Ship, the S.S. John W. Brown here in Baltimore. I get up early to feed our dog Nestle, work out to clear the cobwebs out of my cranium and start writing around 10:00 A.M. The kids are working or at school these days, so I can usually keep hammering the keyboard until around 5:00 P.M. I spend a lot of time doing research and find interviewing eyewitnesses and visiting the sites where stories occur to be the best inspirations for plot and character ideas.
I’m currently working on a fourth novel, assisting a master mariner friend with his memoir and have about half a dozen short stories I just can’t seem to finish. Yet.
As for recent literary developments, I discovered the existence of a position called “sensitivity editor” at a writer’s convention last year, and I think the concept is absolute nonsense. Characters in short stories, novels, etc. should reflect the accurate speech of real people from any era and I hope the literary community does away with this fraud immediately if not sooner.
Trace Evidence 
Yes! On the sensitivity editor. Had that come up for in a short story recently. I abided. But reluctantly. Keep writing and “doing Business.”