Featured Interview With Author P.D. Fertitta
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a native of Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in the city’s oldest restaurant, Fertitta’s Delicatessen and Imported Foods. I graduated from The Centenary College of Louisiana in 2003 with a B.A. in Economics. After several years of working in the restaurant industry, the insurance industry, and the oil and gas industry I finally stopped running from an internal tug I’d felt all my life.
In 2009 I matriculated at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating with my Master of Divinity in 2014 I then spent the next six and a half years as a full time campus minister in the Lutheran Church. However, in 2021 the tug at my heart returned, this time it was home calling me. It was time for me to trade my vocation of Pastor for that of the vocation of a son once again. I returned to Shreveport from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to help my mother care for my stepfather in his ailing health until his passing in early 2022.
Since returning home I can now be found at the counter of Fertitta’s Delicatessen once again, but the story doesn’t stop here. I also founded Padre Fertitta Foods, a line of food products using old Family recipes.
As an avid fan of horse racing, I’ve also founded Omertà Thoroughbreds LLP, a Family partnership which holds stakes in several prominent and promising thoroughbred racehorses in the US and international racing circuits.
Most recently I have begun to pursue a long held dream of combining my love of literature and cinema to become an author and screenwriter by founding Omertà Entertainment. I am making my debut as an author with the Trinacria: The Blood Washes Blood Chronicles series of novellas. This isn’t the end, not by a long shot!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I found a love for reading at an early age with stories like The Hardy Boys Mysteries.y love for writing began to grow when I took a creative writing class as a high school sophomore. But my interest in storytelling wasn’t limited to the written word. Cinema has always been a big favorite of mine. I think I first saw ‘The Godfather’ when I was 15 years old and loved it. Loved it then – love it now. Being Sicilian, those sorts of stories of family and the saga and drama of all that resonated with me.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love many different genres and writers, but mostly mystery, crime and especially noir fiction. Any existentialist themes resonate deeply with me, and I read a lot of philosophy and theology. My favorite author is Dostoevsky, but I also love Kierkegaard and Jacques Ellul. You can also find authors like Flannery O’Connor, Frank Herbert, Mario Puzo, Steven King, David Baldacci, Lorenzo Carcaterra, Simon Scarrow, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Dorthy B. Hughes on my bookshelves.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I have always loved the Mafia genre. There are deep philosophical and theological elements to those stories and movies. I thought I would like to do something like this and tie it in with my faith and find a way to put that genre on paper to tell a story of faith – a story of scripture – in a way that could be accessible to people that may not otherwise dive into it.
As a result I began working on what would become my authorial debut, a series of novellas titled, Trinacria: The Blood Washes Blood Chronicles.
It is a true epic Mafia family saga. It starts in Napoleonville, La., which is where my great-grandfather came into this country. It starts in the sugar cane fields where he started working. It follows a family from their great-grandfather and his owning a grocery store.
His child and their friend end up being the ones who fall into sin. They do it with good intentions, originally. But as things progress, their world gets darker and darker and deeper and deeper into sin. As sin does all things, it divides. Eventually, the two men who were as close a family to each other, something happens and it divides the families, and now they are out for vengeance. Blood washes blood. The capstone piece I have planned a screenplay which will dig deep into themes of hope, redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
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