By Yasamin Azarakhsh, Deutsch LA intern

While Deutsch LA has no shortage of impressive people under its wing, it can add “published author” to its list of staff accomplishments. Ryan Quinn, a Deutsch proofreader, recently published his coming-of-age campus novel, The Fall.

A dream come true for Ryan, The Fall peaked at number two on Amazon’s Sports Fiction Bestsellers list. The novel follows the story of three very different college students trying to find who they really are during a formative time in their lives.

“I just thought it was an interesting time and that’s what interested me the most about it, that first time you’re sort of grappling with who you are and what you want to do with your life,” Ryan said. “The characters came and then the story came and I just felt like I needed to write it.”

Ryan’s own college experience was unlike that of his football-playing main character. However, as a competitive skier and marathon runner, Ryan sees similarities in work ethics when it comes to sports and writing.

“Writing a novel is incredibly similar to training for an endurance sport. You have to put in a lot of hours day after day. There aren’t bursts of glory to sustain you. You have to take a long view and be competitive with yourself in order to keep going back and trying to make it clearer and better,” said Ryan.

While Ryan lends his talents to Deutsch daily, writing a novel is a labor of love for him.

“I was writing more and more articles for various websites and realizing how much I loved the challenge of crafting a narrative. Also, I read a few bad, very commercially successful books and it made me think, “Hey, I can do this!” he said.

In the publishing world, Ryan blazed his own trail, taking the independent route instead of going through the big six publishing houses in Manhattan, despite fears that his novel would be overlooked.

The book did respectably on its own for six months when he was approached by the publishing division at Amazon, which had been tracking the book. He ultimately signed with them to publish the book.

Although Ryan finished much of the writing of The Fall before he started working at Deutsch, he credits his hours at the agency for allowing him to continue his morning writing schedule and his equally creative Deutsch colleagues for their support.

“Since it’s been published people have been very supportive and a lot of colleagues read it and said they liked it…I feel like a lot of people in this building have things outside of their day job that they pursue creatively, so it’s nice to be in that environment even at work,” said Ryan.

He is currently in the early stages of his second novel, so make sure to look out for Ryan on the bestsellers list in the future. You can purchase The Fall in paperback or eBook on Amazon.

2012-08-15