Award-winning author Mark E. Greene has always had a penchant for exploring the untamed natural world.

While living in Newtown for the last 15 years with his family, he has explored the outdoors near and far. It led him to create his podcast “Mark in the Wild” in 2021, and to pen his latest novel, Lobster Wars, which will be released January 17 by Köehler Books.

Greene had the idea for Lobster Wars after one particularly exciting excursion while visiting a friend in Maine. The two were going out for a joy ride on the friend’s Boston Whaler when suddenly a lobster boat went speeding past them, causing a big wave to rock their boat.

After the lobster boat made its presence known, it continued on a deliberate and aggressive path forward.

“There was a pod of about a dozen sea kayakers, and the lobster boat went right through the middle of the kayakers and never slowed down. It stopped about a hundred yards further down, he pulled his trap, rebaited it, threw it in, spun around, and went right back through the kayakers,” Greene recalled. “When he passed us, he flashed this really nasty grin and kind of a thumbs up. I looked at that and thought, ‘That guy did that on purpose.’”

From that moment, Greene was intrigued and wanted to investigate what lobster fishing was all about.

“I started casually studying the lobster fishing world of the Maine coast. I learned that it is a very insular profession. You can get a license, you can buy a boat, but if the locals don’t want you to fish, they’ll stop you and it can be violent. There have been recorded incidences of shootings, fights on the docks, and things like that,” Greene said.

He decided to take his research further and get firsthand experience on the subject.

“I went up there and was hanging out on one of the docks with a lobsterman who was going to take me out with him,” Greene said. “I asked him about this, and he pointed to a young man standing over in the parking lot. He said, ‘See that kid? That’s the kid of one of the guys who fishes, but we don’t like him, so he’s not going to get the fish.’”

The premise of Lobster Wars soon came together after he read an article by The New York Times that highlighted the television show The Deadliest Catch.

“It’s sort of the granddaddy of realty television shows. It is really well done and has been running for a long time,” Greene said. “It has two major sources of conflict: man versus man and man versus nature.”

He continued: “The article was about the town of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, which is where these boats station themselves to pick up their crew and offload their catch. The article was mainly about what happens when the reality TV production crews show up to begin the filming of the show. It was about how it has created a lot of division in the town, because if you own a bar, restaurant, or inn, you make out really well on all the extra money that is flowing through town. If you don’t own a business like that or live there and are not associated with the fishing industry, there is a lot of people that sort of resent what’s going on.”

Greene was struck by its interesting scenario and merged it with his past research. In doing so, he came up with the idea of telling a story about what happens when reality television arrives in a lobster village in Maine.

‘I Never Gave Up’

Lobster Wars is not Greene’s first cast into the sea of writing to see what bites. He currently has multiple books he is working on.

“I’ve been at this for a long time, and I never gave up,” he said of his career.

Being an avid reader, Greene regularly borrows books from C.H. Booth Library. As serendipity would have it, he checked the inside cover of one he particularly enjoyed, as he does often, and saw it was published by Köehler Books.

It led him to visit the company’s website where he found that they accept book submissions from writers, including those like him who do not have an agent.

"I sent them the manuscript, forgot about it, then about five days later I get contacted by their acquisitions editor. He’s going on about the book and how we should work together. That was on a Wednesday. He had me talk to the publisher John Köehler on Friday, and by Saturday I had a contract,” Greene said.

From there, his dream of having a publishing company give his project “the love and care it is supposed to get” put him on a path of success.

Stylistic Choices

Greene’s fresh vision and delivery for Lobster Wars not only caught the attention of Köehler Books, it also has readers now on the edge of their seats.

He wrote the novel to have “a lot of layers” and a great deal of conflict, he said. His main character, Connor Nichols, butts heads with the townspeople as well as his family throughout the story.

“I consider what I write to be satire, but I try to pace it sort of like a thriller. I use a lot of dialogue. I don’t use a lot of narrative, because I think writers can get carried away with it and be a little self-indulgent … I try to limit the narration to just enough information that you need to add color to the situation and backstory, but I like to have the characters tell the story for me,” Greene explained.

One way he incorporates narration is through the television show airing at specific parts in the book.

“When the story opens, the town is all gathered in this local bar to watch the season finale of season one, which has now been filmed and shown on television. The TV show is now going to go into reruns, so what happens through the course of the present-day action in the novel is it shows up occasionally on television at various parts of the novel,” Greene said.

Greene’s writing style has lent itself to him now working with a writing partner to translate the novel into an eight-episode television series.

“We have interest from some production people in Hollywood to possibly turn it into a TV show … A friend of a friend introduced me to a guy who’s a television producer. I sent him a copy of the novel, and he loved it,” he said.

Greene is working on the script with hopes Lobster Wars will make it on air as a television show.

Author Event

To celebrate the release of Lobster Wars, Greene will be the special guest during an author event at Byrd’s Books, 178 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel, on Sunday, January 22, at 4 pm.

“What I want to do is talk a little bit about creativity and the creative process, because it is something that has always interested me," he shared. "I’m going to try to relate that to the formulation of the novel and how the novel came to be. Then maybe do a little bit of a reading and answer some questions."

He will also do a book signing during the event. Copies of Lobster Wars will be available to purchase at Byrd’s Books.

To learn more about Greene and stay up-to-date on his upcoming releases, visit markegreeneauthor.com and follow him on social media. Lobster Wars can be pre-ordered now through Barnes and Noble as a hardcover, paperback, or eBook.

Reporter Alissa Silber can be reached at alissa@thebee.com.