“As I hiked further into the woods, deeper than I’d ever gone before, I noticed darkness not only surrounding me from the thick canopy of hardwood trees, their leaves abnormally large, but also felt a heaviness in my heart, a tightness in my chest that was counter to all my previous experiences hiking into the wilderness.”
And so begins Jeremy’s unusual and gripping personal journey, a backpacker wandering off the main trail, exploring where more reasonable people usually turn away. Hiking through dense undergrowth and crossing a stream, he’s surprised to find a young couple camping far from the trail. He is keenly aware of their vitality compared to his age and experience. He follows the couple to a strange, otherworldly town nestled in a mountain basin where the people are intriguing and outgoing, and a little odd, especially Margery.
Befuddled yet captivated, Jeremy comes to love his new friends who, unlike him, seem content in what remains of their lives – the young couple, a reticent doctor and his unusual wife, hikers of various ages trekking along the surrounding slopes. He observes a psilocybin trip-treatment for the young woman, and he falls for Margery. But he is confused by Margery’s contradictory behavior and the hint of an inner struggle.
Margery is courageous, embracing what life has given her as displayed not only by her daring interaction with nature, but also by her enigmatic purpose.
What can Jeremy learn from her? His effort to make sense of the craziness is occasionally misguided and humorous, but also full of affection, admiration, and hope.
Cynthia and the Blue Cat’s Last Meow
Cynthia’s world is full of fury and fishing, moonlight and candlelight, magical red berries and howling caverns, a land where many of us would like to visit, and a few do, briefly in our youth. Perhaps we all secretly want to explore such places of the soul where we dream of blue cats and hearts capable of idyllic and adventurous sensuality.
“I loved your book—thank you! It is a ‘page burner’!” – Mary Lu Sanders-Zinser, Intellectual law property.
“Beautifully written… extraordinarily good literary artist.” – Eric Chaet
“What a nice, mystical little story!”- C. Frank, editor.
“I could not put it down. This story is very good.” – Robin Theiss
Where the River Splits
Susan and her husband David capsize in white water, struggle to opposite sides of a raging river, and lead vastly different lives until finally converging again, one prevailing with strength and compassion, the other gaining redemption.
“The journey to the end of the novel is never boring. The scenes set in rural Wyoming feature the geography as much as the characters. Locales in Canada and Mexico also figure into the plot. Still, the story keeps coming back to St. Louis, which should add to its appeal for local readers.”– Steve Weinberg, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“A solidly written and well-structured thriller. That’s no small achievement.” – John Dalton, Heaven Lake: A Novel Winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award
“As an experienced broadcast producer, I think this book would make an excellent movie script!” — Dan Dillion, TV producer, So, Where’d You Go To High School? The Baby Boomer Edition
No Teacher Left Standing
St. Louis County, 2003-2004 school year, a time of flip phones, mid-east war, and leaving no child behind.
The most authentic novel about first-grade teachers you’ll ever read. The characters are fictional, but the events are based on true stories. Written to reflect a frenetic pace that matches the school year.
Sarah Morgan hates conflict. She never understood her parents sniping at each other and she felt protective of her little sister. Keeping the peace served her well as a #teacher. However, now she must fight to defend herself against a duplicitous principal, a Machiavellian superintendent, and an unstable mother’s hurtful attack. After two miscarriages, Sarah is pregnant and alone.
Sarah represents the best in all of us. She is a strong woman who shows grace, courage, humor, and understanding under duress. Confronted with policy dictated by ivy-tower administrators and clueless politicians, Sarah never gives up.
Eight Billion Steps: My Impossible Quest For Cancer Comedy
“It’s perhaps a brave decision to write about all of this, and the reader can feel a bit like a fly on the wall sometimes. But what shines through Jeff’s writing is his determination to beat the cancer, to resolve his other problems and to get on with his life.”
“I love how he champions his wife and friends for their part in his struggle.”
Publishers and agents have said that “Roobala” is “beautiful, witty, and surprising” full of “vivid imagination and beguiling moments” and with the deepest sincerity, “You’re crazy.”
An insane, satiric, humorous, romantic romp through a galaxy full of sexually hyped aliens, bar and grill spaceships, great white horned beasts drinking gold mist, fish transmogrified to match the lust of lost space explorers, and more!
Pioneers from a dying Earth are perpetually hurling into the future, away from home, searching for enough “Roobalas” – the red galactic currency – to go backwards, to go home.
Space explorers for the WACOFF Corporation careen through the galaxy on a comic odyssey of self-discovery, disillusionment and survival. Come along and explore ROOBALA TAKE ME HOME and its surprising pathways into inner and outer space.
Initially written before “Star Wars,” ROOBALA clearly embraces the era’s zeitgeist; however, ROOBALA shreds through the good versus evil underpinning of “Star Wars” and romps through space confronting complex conundrums of human existence. ROOBALA TAKE ME HOME is a grand comedic novel applying western themes to a futuristic Earth and space frontier, full of romance, sex, adventure, mystery, literary and cultural allusions, and financial crisis. ROOBALA vaults readers caroming through space and plot using its own curiously warped narrative drive.
Memberships and affiliations
St. Louis Writers Guild
St. Louis Publishers Association
Missouri Writers Guild
Books About Writing and Other Resources
Finding Your Fiction:
Concise Steps to Writing Successful Fiction
On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition:
A Memoir of the Craft
On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition:
The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Bird by Bird:
Some Instructions on Writing and Life
