Roger Dubin

I'm a New York City native. At age 16, having just graduated high school, I lied my way into the Merchant Marine and shipped out as an ordinary seaman on a tramp freighter bound for North Africa. My first novel, The Coin of the Realm is set in the summer of 1991, with the backdrop of the fall of the Soviet Union. It is loosely based on that seminal voyage, and the voyage of discovery I've been on since. Returning home, I embarked on a series of forays into several colleges, finally dropping out of NYU a few credits shy of a degree in English to join a gigging blues-rock group as lead guitarist - well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I made a living as a musician in Manhattan bar bands and the ski lodges of Vermont before heading west to Hollywood with the notion of a career as a songwriter. I met a guy named Richard Orshoff, the producer of Jackson Browne's debut album among other credits as engineer and producer. Richard liked my songs, and we worked together for a few years recording demos and shopping them with established artists. Lean times, and I supported my fading dream by freelancing as a copywriter and creative director. Eventually I met and married my wife, a wonderful artist, and legally adopted her two young children. Time to find a real job in a big city. A filmmaker for whom I'd written a corporate video script knew the president of Royal Cruise Line in San Francisco, the legendary Richard "Rev" Revnes, who just happened to be searching for a new head of advertising and marketing, and made the intro. Rev and I hit it off at our first meeting and he hired me on the spot. Thus began an unforgettable nine years as VP Marketing and Creative Director at RCL, which led to an award-winning career as a senior executive in the travel industry, and later the founding of my consulting company, Dubin Marketing Inc., which I'm still operating today. I'm currently seeking an agent or publisher for my second novel, The Watches of the Night.