The cat is out of the bag.

The translation has just been announced in Germany, so tomorrow’s EVER NEW won’t be a reveal, but it will still be GREAT!

Above is the cover of the German Language Cover of “DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal”

The German Language edition can be pre-ordered at the link below:

https://www.ifubshop.com/star-trek-b%C3%BCcher/deforest-kelley-ganz-nah-pers%C3%B6nlich/

This book has been well over a decade in the making. Thorsten Walch (who will be my special guest on EVER NEW tomorrow) reached out to me years ago asking for my permission to translate the book into German, and I immediately said yes.

So, he started on the 2001 version, but when the 2016 version came out, he decided he wanted to translate the newest/enhanced version, which has more fun stories in it (more than 55 new pages worth!) and less about De’s final days. Fortunately, a great deal of the enhanced version was the same as the original, so he didn’t have to go back to the drawing board entirely, but he did have to add in the new material. There were also several pages of images in the new version, so most of those images had to be included in the center of the new book by the German publisher.

Thorsten has reported that this project was his most heartfelt ever. He corresponded with DeForest Kelley numerous times and developed a friendship of his own with the man. His story is in my book THE ENDURING LEGACY OF DeFOREST KELLEY: ACTOR, HEALER, FRIEND, but I will ask him to recount it for those who tune in tomorrow, if he’s amenable to doing so.

Having my book translated into German means a great deal to me.  My roots are German on both sides of my family (with a few other nationalities thrown in along the way) and I’m related to the Brothers Grimm, who  are among the most famous of German storytellers, so this feels like a homecoming of sorts to me, three generations removed. My DNA is telling me THIS! IS! A! BIG! DEAL!, so I’m actually feeling it in my “Bones.” (wink wink to you know who!)

Brief Sidestep: “Bones” McCoy is called “Pille” in German, because there is no translation from “Sawbones” (the colloquial term for a doctor/surgeon in English) to “Bones”, so they gave him the nickname Pille (short for “dispenser of pills”).

MY FOREIGN LANGUAGE WISH LIST

I would love to see a Spanish version, too, but I don’t know anyone who’s fluent in both languages who has access to amenable Spanish language publishers and who’s interested in translating it for a percentage of the profits. (Thorsten and Bjorn Sulter reached out to me to produce the German language version.)

I don’t ask much when it comes to receiving foreign language sales; the publisher and translator get the lion’s share of profits because they do all the work, and my sole focus is on extending De’s legacy and letting people know that he was the great guy they heard, and hoped, he was! So, making money from foreign language editions is of minimal interest to me. I just want readers to EXPERIENCE the Kelley dynamic duo viscerally and emotionally in the same ways I did, as opposed to intellectually or historically. I’m an anecdotal writer, not a biographer or historian: I put De’s biography (which he also gave me permission to write) in the capable hands of Terry Rioux.

I don’t know how many TOS fans there are in other countries like Japan, but if there are a lot, and there’s interest in translating this book to additional languages, please reach out to me and let me know. I’m amenable, for sure!