Biography
Gayle Bartos-Pool
(When I was 25, it was a very good year...)
| Write what you know. If you don't know it all, do research. |
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A graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis,
Gayle took a year off between her Sophomore
and Junior years and worked first as a newspaper
reporter for a small Mid-South weekly where
she wrote the local articles, laid out the
front page, and took the pictures with an
old Polaroid camera. About the only thing
she didn't do was deliver the stupid thing
every Thursday. This was in the pre-computer, pre-digital
camera, pre-Internet era.
Gayle followed that job with a stint as a
private detective working for Mark Lipman
Service Incorporated out of Memphis. She
had assignments in Atlanta, Chicago, and
Little Rock. She worked undercover on an
assembly line, in a clothing factory, and
in a printing company. As her female protagonist
in her Ginger Caulfield P.I. series says
in the book, "It's amazing how much
people will tell you when they don't know
they're being questioned."
Gayle has worked as a draftsman, in a bookstore,
made miniatures for a doll house shop, and
then spent a decade in a bank learning about
stocks and bonds before she "retired"
to continue her writing full time. It was
that bank experience that led to her writing
Hedge Bet, the second book in the "Gin Caulfield
P.I. series." The first book in the
series is Media Justice. That story came about after she served
on a jury. The third book in the series,
Damning Evidence, was inspired by a photograph
of a local dam. Gayle writes under the pen
name, G.B. Pool.
Another other mystery series she pens is
The Johnny Casino Casebook featuring Johnny Casino a retired P.I. with
a past. He just hopes it doesn't catch up
with him. There are three books in the series
so far: The Johnny Casino Casebook 1 - Past
Imperfect, The Johnny Casino Casebook 2 -
Looking for Johnny Nobody, and The Johnny
Casino Casebook 3 - Just Shoot Me.
The third mystery series features Chance
McCoy. This guy was given the chance of a
lifetime and is trying very hard to make
good. He gets a partner at the end of the
first book, Second Chance...a German Shepherd named Monte who has
abilities that astound Chance. The second
book, Another Chance, gets Chance up to speed and the third book,
By Chance Alone, has him really starting to find himself.
Gayle has been published in various anthologies
over the years. She has several of her own
short story collections. One is called From Light TO DARK. It is a collection of tales ranging from
lighthearted to soul searching. She dedicated
it to Ray Bradbury. She met the famous man
when she reviewed plays for American Chronicle.
Bradbury told the story once about a variety
of short science fiction stories he had written.
A publisher told him to connect the stories
and put them in one book. He did and The Martian Chronicles was born. Gayle did this with her Johnny
Casino stories.
Another collection is called Only in Hollywood with stories about Tinsel Town.
She also paints, builds miniature doll houses,
and makes hand-made Santas and other crafts.
Her Christmas stories are filled with photographs
of things she made just to illustrate the
books.
Gayle's late husband, Richard J. Pool, was
the basis for Gin's husband, Fred, in The Ginger Caulfield P.I. series. They shared their home with various
dogs and cats and a foundling bird, all strays,
and each one special. Four of them make guest
appearances in her first holiday story, Bearnard's Christmas.
She collects Santas (nearing 3000), Christmas
ornaments, Halloween decorations, Easter
items, Fourth of July decorations, roosters,
and a few other things, space permitting
and a great husband who didn't mind the crowd.
Her second Christmas book is called The Santa Claus Machine. The third in the series is called Every Castle Needs a Dragon.
She is a member of both Sisters-in-Crime/Los
Angeles and Mystery Writers of America. She
was on the board of Sisters-in-Crime/LA as their Speakers Bureau Director
doing over 80 events. She initiated their
workshop program and worked on the last No
Crime Unpublished conference sponsored by
SinC/LA. She was one of the founding members
who brought together Mystery Writers of America
and Sisters-in-Crime/LA for their inaugural
joint conference called the California Crime Writers Conference in June of 2009. She went back on the board
as Treasurer during the 2012-2013 term.
She released the SPYGAME Trilogy in 2015.
THE ODD MAN takes place during World War II, The Cuban
Missile Crisis, and the beginning of the
Cold War. DRY BONES deals with Vietnam, drugs, and part of the
present time. STAR POWER goes back to the McCarthy era, the Prague
Spring, and takes us up to the near future.
Also released in 2015 was CAVERNS. This book deals with a nightmare that happens
in Chicago. She lived there while working
as a private detective, so some of the locals
are based on real placres.
She has one charming romance novel, Enchanted - The Ring, The Rose and The Rapier.
There is also The Santa Claus Singer.
A stand-alone mystery, Closer, was released in 2019.
Released in 2016 is a book for writers called
The Anatomy of a Short Story Workbook. This was followed by So You Want to be a Writer which is a collection of some of the articles
she wrote for The Writers-in-Residence blog
of which she is a mewmber. The latest book
in the series is Words, Words, Words The Art of Writing.
In 2022, she published her autobiography,
A Scrapbook Life, a book filled with memories and photos of
the things she has collected and done in
her 75 years. There is a lot of life to see
with this gal.
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