Welcome

As you can see, this website is a work in progress. From the menu options, you can anticipate there will be sections on writing, current news items of interest, fun things I just wanted to share, personal musings (nothing too self-inflated), reviews, and publishing. The Review option will have a “From the Vault” section, which I am particular interested in, since it will contain recommendations for books and other media long out of print or circulation, but which should still be available for those interested in searching them out.

I hope the Publishing section will also be of interest, especially to new or prospective writers. I will not be approaching this from the point of someone with a lot of experience and expertise—as I am still very new to the publishing world myself. Rather, I thought I would chronicle some of the things I learn along the way. I have a number of books I plan to self-publish, an effort that will involve all the things writers typically wish other people would do for them—such as marketing, book cover design, copy editing, proofreading, formatting, and distribution. Hopefully, the things I learn will be helpful to others.

Finally—and this is still very much up in the air—I hope to start a semi-pro online publication for science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy. This would be a venue particularly aimed at new and emerging writers, since getting noticed at the beginning of your career can be difficult, and there seem to be very few markets for short fiction these days. Hopefully, I can make this happen. It will most likely depend on how the financing works out. Check back later for more details.

About Me

As for me, I have been writing on and off for the last forty years, but have never seriously tried to get published. This changed after I retired. Since then, I have managed to sell a few flash fiction pieces to Sci Phi Journal. Factor Four Magazine, and Daily Science Fiction . I also have a longer story that should be showing up in Old Moon Quarterly toward the end of 2023. Hopefully, more stories will follow.

Most notably, I was the Grand Prize winner for the 2023 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest for a story entitled White Elephant. An anthology of all the winning entries (Volume 39) is now available in print, digital, and audio form. I highly recommend it. The stories are excellent (you will be hearing about a number of these emerging writers in the years to come). There are also original stories by Kevin J. Anderson and S.M. Sterling. In addition, this year’s volume contains full-plate color illustrations for each of the winning entries. Definitely worth checking out.