Simple Living
11-29-2007, 10:20 PM
This article, and video broadcast, appears on my local news website here in Minneapolis. It's incredibly encouraging if you're still unpublished, or, even if you've self-published. He's also dyslexic and sold over 10 million books! Best-Selling Author Vince Flynn. Hope is alive!
Local, Best-Selling Author Overcoming Obstacles (http://wcco.com/entertainment/vince.flynn.author.2.598459.html)
(WCCO) He looks like any other young Minnesota guy you'd see at the grocery store, or coaching a kid's football game from the sideline, but Vince Flynn is far from ordinary. The world famous author has sold more than 10 million books.
He's what Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said about him: "Vince Flynn is the literary equivalent of Prince; he's our Minnesota literary icon."
He's a local icon who recently reached the literary pinnacle. His latest political thriller, Protect and Defend, just debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
Fan's love the way Flynn takes them to a place far removed from the cold plains of Minnesota where spies and CIA operatives survive in a world of danger and espionage. The latest novel takes place in the Middle East with most of the action in Iran.
These days, Flynn's world includes presidential invitations to the White House and the director of the CIA also requested a meeting.
King Abdullah of Jordan flew him to Amman for a visit because he reads Flynn novels too.
However, the University of St. Thomas alumnus came from humble beginnings and was raised to take fame, fortune and the famous all in stride.
"I was very lucky to grow up in that Irish catholic tradition of everybody's equal," said Flynn. Traditions that also meant you work hard for everything.
Flynn overcame huge obstacles to become a success through perseverance and a commanding personality.
At age 27, Flynn quit a high paying corporate job to bartend at O'Gara's Pub in St. Paul while writing his first novel.
It took him three years and pub owner Dan O'Gara calls Flynn extremely motivated.
"He treated it as a full time job, he'd work eight hours a day on it. He basically worked here nights and then he would write during the day, all day long," said O'Gara.
"There were moments when I was bar tending at O'Gara's and I would get another rejection letter and I'd think what am I doing. Why am I doing this?" said Flynn.
After 60 rejection letters, Flynn decided to publish his first novel all by himself.
He visited Once Upon a Crime book store where former owner Steve Stilwell told Flynn self-publishing was crazy.
However, Flynn had a plan; sell enough books in Minnesota and hopefully catch the attention of a New York publisher. It worked.
"To get Barnes and Noble to pick it up, I just shook my head in amazement, and that's what I meant when I said earlier he could sell sand in the desert because that's not easy to do," said Stilwell.
Not easy, and almost inconceivable when you understand this rough chapter of his life: the best selling author has dyslexia.
"I've never got better than a 'C' in English class in my entire life. Because I can't spell. I don't know the difference between a b in a heel and a heel in a shoe, none of it makes any sense to me," said Flynn.
He was diagnosed with the learning disability in grade school.
"I get very emotional about this. You don't know that as a kid, that you've been given this gift, you just think that you're not as smart as all the other kids," said Flynn.
He still has dyslexia, but it's more manageable now. As a kid he says it was "nearly incapacitating."
His father's emphasis on sports helped him through it. So did coming from a big St. Paul family.
"I never realized through all of this is how competitive I am. I just thought this is how everyone grew up with four brothers and two athletic sisters, all pounding he heck out of each other, never liking to lose. And that is what really saw me through the hardest part of this," said Flynn.
It was difficult back then, but Flynn now views his dyslexia as a gift of creativity and insight. He said it allows him to know how TV dramas are going to end after watching just a few minutes. The same thing applies to how he could foresee and write about radical Islamic fundamentalists attacking this country four years before the 9/11 terrorists attack.
"Part of it is the dyslexia, it's the way the brain is wired, I think we just think in a leap frog fashion if that makes sense," said Flynn.
He wants the parents of children with learning disabilities to realize their kids have gifts and talents as well.
"I made it, I survived and I tell those parents, you're looking at a 'C' student and I've got a wonderful wife, three very healthy kids, and it's not the end of the world to go through school, struggling to read and write and be a 'C' student," said Flynn.
Local, Best-Selling Author Overcoming Obstacles (http://wcco.com/entertainment/vince.flynn.author.2.598459.html)
(WCCO) He looks like any other young Minnesota guy you'd see at the grocery store, or coaching a kid's football game from the sideline, but Vince Flynn is far from ordinary. The world famous author has sold more than 10 million books.
He's what Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said about him: "Vince Flynn is the literary equivalent of Prince; he's our Minnesota literary icon."
He's a local icon who recently reached the literary pinnacle. His latest political thriller, Protect and Defend, just debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
Fan's love the way Flynn takes them to a place far removed from the cold plains of Minnesota where spies and CIA operatives survive in a world of danger and espionage. The latest novel takes place in the Middle East with most of the action in Iran.
These days, Flynn's world includes presidential invitations to the White House and the director of the CIA also requested a meeting.
King Abdullah of Jordan flew him to Amman for a visit because he reads Flynn novels too.
However, the University of St. Thomas alumnus came from humble beginnings and was raised to take fame, fortune and the famous all in stride.
"I was very lucky to grow up in that Irish catholic tradition of everybody's equal," said Flynn. Traditions that also meant you work hard for everything.
Flynn overcame huge obstacles to become a success through perseverance and a commanding personality.
At age 27, Flynn quit a high paying corporate job to bartend at O'Gara's Pub in St. Paul while writing his first novel.
It took him three years and pub owner Dan O'Gara calls Flynn extremely motivated.
"He treated it as a full time job, he'd work eight hours a day on it. He basically worked here nights and then he would write during the day, all day long," said O'Gara.
"There were moments when I was bar tending at O'Gara's and I would get another rejection letter and I'd think what am I doing. Why am I doing this?" said Flynn.
After 60 rejection letters, Flynn decided to publish his first novel all by himself.
He visited Once Upon a Crime book store where former owner Steve Stilwell told Flynn self-publishing was crazy.
However, Flynn had a plan; sell enough books in Minnesota and hopefully catch the attention of a New York publisher. It worked.
"To get Barnes and Noble to pick it up, I just shook my head in amazement, and that's what I meant when I said earlier he could sell sand in the desert because that's not easy to do," said Stilwell.
Not easy, and almost inconceivable when you understand this rough chapter of his life: the best selling author has dyslexia.
"I've never got better than a 'C' in English class in my entire life. Because I can't spell. I don't know the difference between a b in a heel and a heel in a shoe, none of it makes any sense to me," said Flynn.
He was diagnosed with the learning disability in grade school.
"I get very emotional about this. You don't know that as a kid, that you've been given this gift, you just think that you're not as smart as all the other kids," said Flynn.
He still has dyslexia, but it's more manageable now. As a kid he says it was "nearly incapacitating."
His father's emphasis on sports helped him through it. So did coming from a big St. Paul family.
"I never realized through all of this is how competitive I am. I just thought this is how everyone grew up with four brothers and two athletic sisters, all pounding he heck out of each other, never liking to lose. And that is what really saw me through the hardest part of this," said Flynn.
It was difficult back then, but Flynn now views his dyslexia as a gift of creativity and insight. He said it allows him to know how TV dramas are going to end after watching just a few minutes. The same thing applies to how he could foresee and write about radical Islamic fundamentalists attacking this country four years before the 9/11 terrorists attack.
"Part of it is the dyslexia, it's the way the brain is wired, I think we just think in a leap frog fashion if that makes sense," said Flynn.
He wants the parents of children with learning disabilities to realize their kids have gifts and talents as well.
"I made it, I survived and I tell those parents, you're looking at a 'C' student and I've got a wonderful wife, three very healthy kids, and it's not the end of the world to go through school, struggling to read and write and be a 'C' student," said Flynn.