So it goes...

While I don't have too many memories about my dad, I do have several of my stepfather, Jack. He and my mom dated for nearly 10 years before they married in 1979. While he was by no means a perfect father, (I mean, who is?) he was all I had growing up, with maybe the exception of a few father figures that played various roles in my upbringing. Perhaps Jack's most redeeming quality was his sense of humor. He was nicknamed Happy Jack because of it. It carried over into his drinking where he was known as a happy drunk. (Believe me, I've seen both happy and mean drunks, and I'll take a happy one any day.) But his sense of humor was what carried him through life. It made him more tolerable and someone whom people loved to be around. I credit much of my own lightheartedness to him. One of his famous phrases was "Not to worry," said with a hint of an Irish accent. I use that as my mantra most days of the week. I bring Jack up because this past week, I had a po...

Today marks the official release of my poetry chapbook On a Road   by Unsolicited Press .  It was a release planned around this date, as it marks the 49th anniversary of the death of Jack Kerouac, the beat generation author of the classic book, On the Road . The chapbook was written stylistically in part to pay homage to On the Road, but also because it recounts a trip that reminded me of the book. As I've mentioned before, the chapbook is a series of poems that chronicles a road trip two buddies and I took from Minnesota to California in a rental car in 1984. It was a long strange trip with the destination being a friend's house in suburban Los Angeles. Jack Kerouac, 3/12/1922 – 10/21/1969 The description of the book explains that it is the story of youths heading west to see what "life in fast lane" was all about. What we discovered was that our Midwestern practicality and sensibilities were not cut out for life in Cali. We came back to Minnesota with great ...

Lots going on in the world of writing these days. I try and post all of my publications on my Author Website publications page, but I realize most people don't visit the site unless it is a link somewhere.  I'll focus on the biggest news and pay lip service to the rest of the items. In case you haven't heard, I have a chapbook that was just accepted for publication as an ebook by Underground Voices .  Now, even most of the people in my writing class didn't know what a chapbook was, so let me explain. It is a collection of poems, usually forty or less, that are sometimes focused around a theme (though that is not required). Mine are not theme specific, and as it stands now, there are forty in this publication. This is a group of poems I am extremely proud of. I put them out for publication because the timing was right. I had accumulated a bunch of them and rather than trying to submit them individually to various magazines, I thought a grouping would be nice....