After many years of living with the memories of Vietnam haunting me day and night, lost jobs, lost loved ones, and suicidal thoughts, I was told by a doctor that sometimes just writing things down may help. I also found a marine corps webpage that had a bunch of Nam vets on it, and started writing some of my experiences. Many of them told me that I should write a book…
In Don’s painting, a black soldier leads a saddled cavalry horse. Admiring the flyer, I said to no one in particular, “Someone should write his story.”
Across the room, my wife said, “Why don’t you write it?” Not realizing that she had heard me, my jaw dropped. Huh? Me? The chemistry major, turned soldier, turned IT guy?
Money was tight raising four children on a teacher’s salary so my son Darin helped me collect aluminum cans along the roadside to get money for postage to send out manuscripts…
What I didn’t realize is that my time in the military, and civilian career in the government, gave me plenty to think about, not to mention lots of material to craft my novel…
In first grade, I found reading difficult. I heard Italian spoken every day, but spoke English. A tough Catholic school nun, Sister Mary Ernest, took me under her wing and I soon began to read…
The novel even appears on a list of banned books, along with some very famous titles in American literature…
Many truckers allow the insanity that consumes them to run rampant in their lives, while others become victims of circumstances, unaware of the consequences involved. Others become victims of their environment, not being able to have a say in what happens to them…
The experiences I had working with people facing life-threatening illnesses were deeply powerful and I felt the need to give them voices in a less technical way than I customarily used…
The doctor began, “She’s a beautiful little girl, and you can take her home with you today. But, before you take her home, I would like you to stop by Columbus Children’s Hospital first on the way…”
The Trees of Malice is a collection of sixteen short stories “of horror and the weird,” as the publisher called it, but even though I love zombie movies, my own writing is more weird and strange than straight horror. I look at the world we know not as a steady, solid place…subject to sudden bloody […]
