My greatest joy in writing is the creative process itself – never quite knowing how a particular plotline or character will evolve. Frequently, it becomes a process of personal growth and illumination. Writing creative fiction requires a certain degree of humility along with the willingness to ‘fight through’ all the hackneyed prose in order to find just the right metaphor or imagery. Over the years I have enjoyed a number of hobbies - woodworking, jazz cornet, beekeeping, etc. - but creative writing is, far and away, the most demanding.

Fans offer a small measure of validation that my shorts stories are finding an appreciative home in the reading community. I use the term ‘small measure’ because the sort of writing I favor (literary fiction), presently possesses a much smaller audience than it did back in the psychedelic sixties, when I was a college student. Still, a narrow group of readers seem to appreciate my creative fiction and I am eternally grateful for their support.

I seem to be mired in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chekhov, Sarah Orne Jewett, E.M. Forster, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Turgenev, George Elliot, Hawthorne and Cather are among some of my favorite writers. I frequently try to emulate them, borrowing both from their plotting techniques and traditional literary values. These writes might be old but their prose is are never old-fashioned or out of date.

I am presently semi-retired after working in health care for the past thirty years. I still practice my cornet every day and play in a community wind ensemble. I also care for a thriving hive of honey bees and fashion small keepsake and jewelry boxes from hardwoods and imported veneers.

The first story I ever wrote was based on an intriguing vignette my wife told me about a friend she met at work. I remember telling her, “Someone ought to work that into a short story.” Many years later I wrote it down in fictional form, then reworked it over a dozen times until it evolved into its final form. The story, The Janitor’s Helper, is still among one of my favorite bits of writing.

I sit down at the computer and pound away at the keys until the four to five thousand words are staring back at me in rough form. Then come the rewrites. I am a merciless revisionist and will sometimes go back years after completing what I thought was the final draft and tear the prose to shreds. No one said writing was easy.