RHS Grad Makes Switch from Screenwriting to Novel Writing

Jason Hefter remembers the days of playing football in the backyard of the Riverhead Elks Lodge, grabbing a shake at Papa Nick's, and racing his friends up Roanoke Avenue in his "Oldsmo-Buick" like it was yesterday.

Fast forward, and the vice president of Riverhead High School's class of 1990 is making his way back to town to celebrate the publishing of his first novel, Hump Day. This Wednesday marks a book signing at Sidewalk in New York City's East Village, and March 28, he comes back to Riverhead for a signing at

The 39-year-old Hefter, currently an East Quogue resident, has made his way from North Carolina, to Australia, to New York City to Los Angeles on the strength of his screenwriting abilities, and Hump Day derives its inspiration from the big screen. Hefter originally wrote the concept as a screenplay, but Hollywood thought it was "way too weird to make into a movie," he said.

Written non-chronologically, a la Pulp Fiction, the novel follows six thirtysomethings through a not-so-mundane Wednesday - a day that typically comes with the same goal for many: just making it through, to get one day closer to Saturday.

But not this Wednesday.

"We're always told we can be whatever we want to be, and then we get to this place in our lives where that's actually not really true. If that were the case I'd be Derek Jeter," said Hefter.

"So I had this idea of hump day, being the middle point in the week, and this crisis being the middle point in your life. And it's one 24-hour period where a bunch of characters get one last chance to change their lives for the better. And whether they do or not dictates what happens next. So it's sort of a ride toward karmic justice."

That ride, in the form of Hump Day, wasn't an easy sell to publishers, Hefter said.

"I got letters back from publishers saying they literally laughed out loud when they read the book," he said. "But the general consensus was that I had written a book for people who don't read."

Enter publishing company Cerro Chato, which will release the book on March 23 (pre-order on Amazon is available next week).

"The first time I read it, I was constantly laughing out loud. I thought it was a great book to publish and want to get people to read it," said John Nicosia, founder of Cerro Chato Publishing.

"This book is for guys like me and Jason, guys in their 30s and early 40s who have a sort of overabundance of knowledge of pop culture. Who grew up watching Tarantino movies, Scorcese movies, the comedies like Blues Brothers. It's knowledge that a men of a certain age have that, whether we want it to or not, has seeped into our subconscious."

Looking back on his time in Riverhead, Hefter pointed to former teachers Elaine Kelsey and Doc Greenberg as inspirations for him to pursue a writing career.

"I remember Ms. Kelsey said one time, 'I'm going to be retired in Europe somewhere one day reading books that you've written,'" Hefter recalled. "It's because of those teachers that I took up creative writing in college."

Hefter is now married with two kids. With those "days of angst" behind him, able to write having made it through his own Hump Day, he said raising his family on the East End is a chapter in his life he's enjoying as he continues to work toward another novel with occasional studio work.

"By the time I hit 30, I had wanted to have a movie made and a book published," he said. "I didn't have any of that stuff. I was single and living like a vampire in New York City. That was all great but you can't really do that stuff forever. Or maybe you can. What do I know?"