Does avoiding a premature death mean I’ve lived an interesting life? At 57, I’m tickled to still be running the race.

I was raised in Milwaukee and enjoyed the party at the University of Wisconsin until the music stopped. Joining the Army in college provided a tribe, a backstop.

Some short stories, a few metered poems and creative writing classes gave me flashes of joy, but the “what to write about” seemed stuck in the pathetic genre of loneliness. The craft became like an instrument never picked back up. Circumstances raced ahead of playfulness and my creative dreams drowned. 

 The Army downsized after the Persian Gulf War in 1991 (the first game of a double header) and Active Duty for this newly minted 2ndLieutenant drained away. Without a plan “B” a bewildering and crushing career path ensued in the civilian world. 

Earning a living on the road never occurred to me. “Have hammer will travel,” became my resume. The Army even paid me to go to Southwest Asia a few times. I’ve lived all over the US and now live in God’s country, East Tennessee, retired.

In 1999, I got married, procreated a honeymoon baby, was promoted to Captain, given a Company Command of over a hundred Soldiers and went into heart failure all in the span of three months. I’m feeling much better now.

I wrote down my goofy vignettes about my first deployment as therapy, making myself either laugh out loud or cry into my beer. Once again, I was hooked on the creative. Nothing tingles my brain like smithing words to make a reader feel what I will have them feel.

My second novel was interrupted by COVID and the love stories got a hard twist. Where suffering intensifies draws me like a magnet, like the sound of gunfire. I’ve become a hard man.

Being an independent author and publisher has been a like pushing a boulder up hill.

But if it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it.Kenny here!!!