Mariann and Roger Brenner, who authored the book “The Secret Life Of A Police Dog”, will be holding a book signing at the Roselle Park Veterans Memorial Library on Thursday, June 28th from 6 p.m. till 8 o’clock at night.
The book came about through breakfast conversations Roger would have with his wife Mariann, a retired K-9 police officer, from time to time on her experiences in law enforcement. Mariann would talk about Thor and the 12 years they worked together until he passed away.
Little by little, those anecdotes found their way onto napkins as scribbled notes. Roger would jot them down here and there. Then, the pile of square paper serviettes found their way onto a computer screen. Roger put a spin on the stories and wrote them from the point of view of a police dog. The title character is never named but it is actually a composite of Mariann and her fellow police officers.
Over the span of three months, Roger worked away at the series of stories and built them into ten chapters made up of 10,000 words. Roger explained that, as an actor on television shows for almost a decade, sitting around for up to 12 hours waiting for a scene to be shot gave him the chance to work on his tome.
He added, “Also, I really enjoyed taking police stories and show the police officer’s point-of-view before cellphone cameras start rolling. I wanted to show the good and the human side of the police.”
Roger found that beyond the sculpting of good stories into a good read, the hardest part for him was everything after the words were written. He said, “The front cover, back cover, editing, proofreading, formatting, pricing, marketing and other administrative tasks took over half a year.”
Eleven months after starting, “The Secret Life Of A Police Dog” landed on Amazon.
Since then, Roger and Mariann have been recognized by the governing body at the May 17th municipal meeting, they are getting ready for a book signing at the library this Thursday night, and have even filmed a short film based on the first chapter of the book.
“The movie is now in the editing process and it will be ready to enter into the Roselle Park Film Festival in September 2018 [and] other film festivals,” remarked Roger, “We are also looking for an agent who can use it as a treatment and shop it to the major studios. I definitely see a TV show or movie on the horizon.”
Still, with all that, Roger continues writing. He said the next in “The Secret Life” series – titled “The Secret Life of a Police Dog Handler” – is ¾ completed and has started working on his third tome “The Secret Life of an EMT”. He started writing that one while working as an FDNY/EMT on the set of “Law & Order SVU”.
“The Secret Life Of A Police Dog” can be ordered via Amazon.com (link).
Mariann and Roger will be accompanied by their dog Enzo to discuss their book and available for a signing Thursday night. The Roselle Park Veterans Memorial Library is located at 404 Chestnut Street.