[close] After spending a good part of my life teaching in the secondary schools and colleges of upstate New York,I began to renew my love affair with writing two years ago.In that brief time ,I have put together two individual collections of related short stories, Half -Past Nowhere, and Love Songs in Minor Keys and had them accepted for publication by the first and only publisher I contacted.Patterned after Hemingway's In Our Time, Half -Past Nowhere traces the growth of a young hero as he passes from the innocence of youth to the understanding that comes only with experience. Two of the included stories, "Mountain Men" and "Phineas Rising" have been selected as finalists by Glimmer Train, one of the most prestigious of venues for the short story."Phineas Rising," was also selected as a finalist in the Tom Howard/John Reid international contest for the short story

The second collection,Love Songs in Minor Keys is a comprehensive study of Love,in all of its manifestations.As the title suggests, the stories function as do minor keys in music.Unlike major keys, which are often bright and familiar,minor keys suggest more complexity; a kind of intensity reserved for the unorthodox or unexpected,while still retaining enough of the familiar to be easily recognizable. The collection makes for easy, if thought provoking reading, and came out in April of this year. It has already received glowing tributes from Anthony Abbott(Ph.D Harvard)legendary professor of literature at Davidson College, and himself a published poet, Pulitzer Prize nominee and novelist,and David Geherin,(Ph.D, Purdue) short story specialist at East Michigan University, and a candidate for this year's Edgar Allan Poe Award for best book of literary Criticism. .


Over the years, I've developed a myriad of interests.One of the most demanding ,has been improvising jazz piano.It's a process not unlike the process a writer utilizes in creating a work of fiction. In each case, you don't know where you're going until you get there. That element of discovery is just one of the many wonderful things about writing, a point I often demonstrate at my many book signings.

Having been born in "the charmed circle" of the Catskill Mts., it's not surprising that Nature figures prominently in many of my stories,although always as a backdrop for some universal law(the verities Faulkner called them).
A one time wine connoisseur,ginseng hunter,fly fisherman,rattlesnake hunter(pictures only) and still world traveler(India is my favorite by far) I happily reside in the South among the bones of Faulkner,Welty,Twain, Capote et al.

I have an M.A. in English from American University in Washington,D.C., and a B.A.in English from Marist College in Poughkeepsie,N.Y. I have also studied Philosophy at the graduate level at Georgetown and have several advanced degrees in Education.
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