It all began in elementary school back in 1954-55 when a wonderful teacher, Miss Barbara Brown, took my first “fantasy” writings to heart. Each of the dozen or so stories I wrote that year were barely four written pages long, but she enjoyed them, helped me correct my youthful punctuation, and encouraged me to continue.

Thirty years later, I was a union carpenter who got tired of waiting for work in the union hall during a building freeze. I returned to college.I still had stories in my head, and after some successful writings in English courses at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, and finally getting an AA degree, I then went to San Jose State University with the idea to pursue a new trade. It was a mid-life career change from blue collar to white collar.

I entered a certificate program to learn technical writing. That program required me to be an English major and go through all the standard courses pertaining to that major. Two of the courses were in creative writing, mainly the writing of fiction. I began writing in earnest. Two of my stories received awards, which convinced me to keep writing...and writing...and writing...