Bio
I have always had a desire to write. As a child, I made up stories about my friends and schoolmates. In high school, my best friend and I created an underground newspaper that lampooned our Carmelite priests and lay teachers. It was a hit but short-lived, after one of the priests discovered and conviscated it. Fortunately, the subsequent search to find and punish the creators was unsuccessful.
After a stint in the army, I graduated from Cal State Northridge with a degree in English. Married with one child and another on the way, my goal was to pursue a teaching credential while writing on the side but it became imperative to find steady work. After a series of dead end jobs, I found and built a sales career in the freight transportation business. I continued to read voraciously during those years while writing remained on the back burner.
That changed In 2005 when, at fifty-five, I retired early from FedEx. Lured by the promise of “big money,” I took a recruiting job in the home security industry. It wasn’t a fit and after six months, I quit. During my exit interview, the owner challenged me to stay by asking. “What legacy will you leave your children?” In his mind, financial wealth was the only goal. As much as his words hit home, I knew it was not in the cards. I didn’t consciouly equate them to writing at the time but it wasn’t too long afterward that I did.
I decided to take some time off to think about my next move. I had some money saved up and my three children were grown and doing well. The first thing I did was sign up for some online writing classes while also studying books on the craft and discipline of storytelling..
I gained confidence from the excellent classes and the constructive feedback from the teachers. Ten months went by I had to find a job and go back to work, though I continued to write and take more classes. Not long after that my oldest daughter gave me the joyous news that I was going to be a grandfather. The idea came to me to write a “How to Read” book for my grandson. I recalled the legacy discussion and thought that a book about him from his grandfather would be valuable memento to leave behind. Something his mother and father would keep for him and that he might give to his own children someday.
I began with that noble intention. I visualized my grandson and I sitting in my easy chair, reading a Dr. Seuss type of book about how he got his name.
But instead of a funny, rhyming book, I wrote “The Boy With No Name,” a nightmarish tale about a newborn kidnapped from the hospital by a deranged nurse before winding up in an abusive foster home desperate to find out what his true name was and where he came from. My daughter was horrified. She was placated somewhat when I assured her it would have a happy ending.
Right as I was finishing the book, I was elated to find out that my other daughter was pregnant. There was no doubt that my granddaughter would get a book too. This became “The Midnight Ride of Missy Montaigne,” a young adult novel that takes place during the Revolutionary War. I used family members and ancestors as characters in both stories. This remained a theme in the rest of my books since, in quick succession, I had three more grandchildren, and each one would have to have a book about them.
I never wrote with genre or marketing in mind, only a desire to tell a good story. The books, all self-published, range from middle-grade and young adult fiction to my historical novel, “Loyal Son” and its upcoming sequel. Writing has become my heartfelt legacy. I imagine the books on my grandchildren’s shelves, perhaps even passed down to future generations. I don’t doubt they’ll wish I had left them money, but this is what they’re getting.