Hello, I’m Robert Udulutch.
I’ve been writing fiction and telling tall tales for decades, just ask anyone who worked with me in the corporate world.
I have an amazing wife and two incredible daughters, and if you’re reading my Spot and Smudge series I imagine you won’t be too surprised when I tell you we live on the South Shore of Massachusetts with a pair of rescued black mutts. I’m also gambling you won’t be overly shocked to learn I’m surrounded by a clan of Scottish in-laws.
These affable damn Scots are a true treasure and I’m in love with the lot of them. Their passion, cheekiness, and unsinkable affinity for life forced its way onto many of my characters in a none-to-subtle way, and I think by all measures the stories are the better for it. A fair bit of our family’s shenanigans have also ended up in the books, and through them I hope you come away with a sense of our fondness for, and devotion to, each other. Even if the characters are often telling one another to "Shut It".
The big personalities of the little black pups in my novels are also drawn from our lives. The Spot and Smudge characters are a fusion of the two pairs of rescued black littermates I’ve raised over the last three decades. That adds up to well over a hundred thousand hours of being immersed in the stupid, awesome things pairs of dogs get in to. Muddy paws and vile unnamable smells aside, I’ve loved every second of watching them grow from silly puppies into noble dogs, and then into distinguished gray muzzled old men and ladies. Spot and Smudge were our original pair (given their own page on this website for obvious reasons), and our current pair of black hellions are Ty and Z. Their antics and eccentricities have provided me with a seemingly endless supply of anecdotes, and I think their true stories have ended up becoming the best parts of my fiction. As the saying goes, you can’t write this stuff.
Having the Scots and the pups for inspiration was a great start so I just filled in the rest from my own twisted imagination. The books are science fiction, so by definition they’re a little wacky but I tried hard to keep the speculative parts as close to medically plausible as possible. They are almost hard sci-fi in that regard, especially where they explore the pup’s gifts and origins in the second and third books. Point being, if you’re willing to come along for the ride I’ll commit to working overtime keeping the fiction bits as logical and 'true' as I can, while still reserving the right to push the envelope of the genre of uplifted animals...you bought your ticket, be forewarned the ride gets a little crazy.
And finally, there’s the gritty bits. I know some of the rawer scenes offered up in the books aren't to everyone's taste, but if we’re telling truths here I absolutely loved writing all of the messed up, wicked, and just plain wrong parts.
So there you go. If you've enjoyed reading the 'Spot and Smudge' series or the 'One Paw in the Grave' collections please keep in touch, and if not, well, shut it!
Regards,
Bob
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click Smudge's chicken to see the charities she supports