Pat Henshaw

Writing gives me a chance to meld my worlds: the real world where I live day by day in the physical sense and the world in my mind which parallels my mental world. What do I mean?

I see two people sitting together in a café. They may be leaning toward one another as if in deep conversation. That's the physical world, the world I can see. In my head, I'm running a number of scenarios. They are friends planning an intervention for a mutual friend. They just met and are finding that they have so much in common that they are making a life-long connection. They are lovers so wrapped up in their particular bubble that I don't even exist. My imagination runs rampant, and often it flows into a scene I'd like to add to something I'm currently writing.

I find out more about myself and the world around me by this dual exploration of the real and the imaginary.

At the end of 2020, I'm working on a number of stories. A Is for unAvailable is a second chance story told from the viewpoint of a man who decides to attend his fifteenth high school reunion and return the letter jacket his lover gave him. Ox in Love is an opposites attract story from the viewpoint of a large, lumbering orderly who is studying to become a nurse and the accountant who loves him.

Given time, I would also like to finish two more Foothills Pride stories: How to Mend a Wooden Heart and Buckaroo.

Because I love to write holiday stories, I'll also write my yearly Christmas tale to make readers feel the warmth of the holiday spirit.