Brookfield, CT | August 7th, 2015 — Daryl Janney took an unusual route on the way to his education at Boston University. Before earning his degree with Distinction in English literature, Janney worked for two years as a professional model.

That’s the setting for Nineteen, his debut novel. Now Janney is working on Twenty, the sequel. But he’s no longer a determined young fashion model trying to make it in a cutthroat world where physical beauty hides deep and ugly emotional scars. Photo shoots don’t show the truth: a son whose father tried to drown him; a youth who was denied affection or encouragement while growing to maturity; a young man whose dazzling good looks concealed painful self-doubt. Readers who have read Nineteen are clamoring for a sequel, and Daryl Janney wants to satisfy them.

Janney, the father of seven, works as a contractor supporting his family, enjoying a happy marriage and writing when he can. He explains the yearning to be a writer while firmly anchored in the adult world of responsibility: “I wanted to be a writer, but then life happened.” Or, to put it another way, “In September of 1989, I went to sleep…a single man and aspiring writer. I woke up in 2009, a 47-year old father of five, expecting the birth of my sixth child.”

In addition to being a husband, father and carpenter whose hands have built many houses, Janney discovered that those hands wanted to wield a pen as much as they did a hammer. He had given up on his dream of becoming a writer. He was too old, he thought. It was too difficult. There wasn’t any time. But these carpenter’s hands were writer’s hands too…so every morning, he got up early to write. Yes, the process was slow and laborious; however, after four years Daryl had a finished novel, Nineteen. The young adult novel recreates the fashion world that he remembers well; set in the 1980s, when a young man who was adored by the camera’s eye could be both naïve and worldly, a cynic and a dreamer. It’s the world of fashion modeling that some may shy away from, reluctant to accept the truth of what’s going on when models leave the runway.

Janney has begun a Kickstarter campaign to write Twenty, the next in his series about young Macklevane, a sought-after model who travels from Milan to Paris to New York City. With crowdfunding support, Janney hopes that this novel will only take nine months to finish, so that a paperback and e-book version can be ready for eager readers by the summer of 2016. He’s seeking $19,000 by September 2 so that his writing dream can continue its course.

Janney’s crowdfunding revenue will be used for the writing, editing, and designing of Twenty, which delves deeper into the glossy world of 1980s glam-fashion, the world where Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein are not only designing clothes but also designing the look of an era. This is uncharted territory for the young adult genre, but in Janney’s writer/builder hands, it’s a world readers will want to explore.

About Daryl Janney

Daryl Janney (DarylJanney.com), author of the young adult novel Nineteen, follows the advice to “write what you know.” What Janney knows all too well is the world of professional modeling, and that’s the subject of his gritty, coming-of-age novel into a world that’s exotic and unknown to people who perceive the fashion model setting as one of glamor and prestige. Janney knows a different side of the modeling world: yes, there are the exotic locales in places frequented by the rich and famous, but there’s also the hardscrabble survival to make ends meet in postage-stamp-sized living quarters in New York City and a prostitute-ridden boarding house in Milan, Italy. From a modeling career to a degree in English literature to marriage and fatherhood, Janney’s return to writing is the resurgence of a dream. His novel, written with the memory of his modeling career and the wisdom of life, evokes the vulnerability of his young hero whose wounds are buried deep beneath the handsome face of a fashion model’s physical perfection.

Contact Info:
Michael Shaker, Designer & Publicist
E F Lee Publishing LLC
Office: 203-313-8413
nineteen@daryljanney.com