Genres: Humor Fiction / Illustration
What has been your most rewarding moment as an author?
My most rewarding moments are getting laughs from audiences or individuals.
Seeing my work appear on stage or in the newspaper. I have always been able to accompany the story with an illustration.
Have you ever based characters on real people? Examples.
My characters are usually based on real people but presented doing something funny. Examples are fellow hikers, neighbors, or Osama Bin Laden.
How do you find your ideas?
I find ideas in the media, someone’s personal experience, or my own evolution. The media is mostly negative, so it can be hard work.
What made you consider writing in the first place?
My eighth-grade English teacher made me consider writing when she suggested I do so. Later in life my meeting notes became famous at work.
What has helped you in beginning the writing process?
What helps me get started on something is being pressured by an outside force or request.
I can never just “dream something up.” I would never have produced the six Fairy Tale Scripts if I had not been approached by the noted storyteller Helen Coulter.
What is your goal as an author?
My goal now is to support our theater community with actable material, and to continue with response to private projects. My book on Amazon is Fun at the Mike and contains both text and art. No help from ChatCPT.
BIOGRAPHY
Raised in the big steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, but decided early that the blast furnace was not for me. Two non-war years with Uncle Sam allowed me five years of architecture at Ohio State University. After learning to draw buildings instead of cartoons, I found work and a wife in the Lone Star State. Learned to say “fixing” and “y’all.”
Besides the meeting notes and progress reports, the writing took the form of greeting cards and party skits. ’Moonlight’ work at the home desk. Fast forward through many tall buildings and two great daughters, I am now back to cartoons and funny stories. Notably short plays produced at the Palace and Esther’s Follies and the long tenure as editorial cartoonist on The Williamson County Sun. Everything edited, of course, by the same amazing wife, Julia.
San Gabriel Writers' League 