T

THE QUALITY IN ALL OF THEM IS EXCELLENT. WHITE, WHITE PAGES AND BLACK, BLACK PRINT. THE COVERS ARE STUNNING; BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES OF DERON DOUGLAS'S COVER ARTISTRY, NOT INCLUDING ON TO MARS 2, THE RACE IS ON AND THE COFFEE SHOP CHRONICLES. SILVER MOON, A FREE READ, ONLY ON THIS SITE.
BOOK 2 OF THE RAIN TRILOGY - MAELSTROM is here! Magnificent cover by Deron Douglas.
John Klawitter is another old dude I know and I'm sure you'll want to know him, too. He's an excellent writer with an imagination that is unbounded. His prose flows and is understandable -- if you can wrap your brain around that. Click pic....
And what delightful and rewarding experiences
they were. My thanks go to Lea Schizas, who is the driving force, but also to all those who presented and participated.
Wonderful experiences indeed!
Will I do it again? Sure, and I hope I'm feeling well enough to make it all the way through next year.
Oh, btw, anyone who had questions or comments for me that I missed, please feel free to contact me directly by e-mail and we'll take care of it.

SCIENCE FICTION - HARD & SOFT at its finest. Also excursions into FANTASY, HORROR, HUMOR plus mind-bending MAINSTREAMISH for the not too squeamish.

HEY, HOW
ABOUT THIS? I WAS REFERRED TO AS THE 'O. HENRY' OF SCIENCE
FICTION. I'M GOING TO TAKE THAT AS A COMPLIMENT AND LEAVE IT
ALONE. I THINK I'LL FEEL BETTER ABOUT IT IF I DON'T LOOK FOR THE MEANING
HIDING THERE SOMEWHERE....
I WAS ALSO CALLED 'THE MODERN DAY ISAAC ASIMOV'. ALTHOUGH
INFLUENCED GREATLY BY HIS WORKS, I DON'T THINK I COULD EVER FILL HIS
SHOES. FRANKLY, I DON'T BELIEVE ANYONE CAN. I'M HUMBLED BY
THE THOUGHT, BUT I'LL SKIRT AROUND THAT ONE, TOO.
TWISTED TAILS: An Anthology to Surprise and Delight
finished in the Top Ten picks from the Preditors & Editors Poll for Mainstream Novel and won the coveted Dream Realm Award for the Anthologies Category.
TWISTED TAILS II: Time on Our Hands - Volume 1 takes First Place
position as Winner of the EPPIE Awards Science Fiction Category. TWISTED TAILS II - Time on Our Hands - Volume 1 also snags Finalist positions in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards. Not once, but twice. One for Anthologies and again for Science Fiction -- a rare occurrence,
to be sure.
TWISTED TAILS II: Out of Time - Volume 2 takes a Finalist spot in the EPPIE Awards of 2008 for Science Fiction. My word...!
TWISTED TAILS III: Pure Fear grabs an Honorable Mention in the 2008 ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards...!
TWISTED TAILS IV: Fantastic Flights of Fantasy nabs yet another Finalist spot in the 2009 ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards...!
TWISTED TAILS V: Apocalypses Now and Then secures a Finalist position in the 2010 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards...!
TWISTED TAILS VI: The Alien Connection is here and it is everything we had hoped for. It sports a wonderful Deron Douglas cover and a batch of incredible, magnificent stories from a group of highly imaginative authors.
Marylin Peake's fine book FROM HOLLYWOOD EXPERTS AND PUBLISHED AUTHORS takes a Silver medal in ForeWord Magazine's BOOK OF THE YEAR Awards. From a newsletter? Yep. Her other newsletter book, INSIDE SCOOP, scoops up two more Finalist spots
and gets an Honorable Mention, too. Wow!
Add to that the 2009 EPPIE Award and that's quite a collection I'm in...!
ANCIENT WHISPERS FROM TOMORROW
was selected as a Finalist in the 2008 Dream Realm Awards. A
good show but it didn't <sob and whimper> win. Oh, well, next time.
I took FIRST PRIZE in the PIONEERS
DIVISION for an essay on why we should colonize Mars and, by default, the
moon ASAP. The essay appears in the book ON TO MARS 2 by Dr.
Robert M. Zubrin and Frank Crossman of THE MARS SOCIETY. This book
is available from Apogee Books and various other sources.
A short-short of mine, TAP ROOT,
found its way into a collection titled THE COFFEE SHOP CHRONICLES
offered up by A Word With You Press. 100 super short stories of the
mainstream type....
MEMBERSHIP (PAST AND/OR PRESENT) IN A FEW SOCIETIES:......................
THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC
THE LOS ANGELES AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS SOCIETY
MARSDRIVE
THE MARS SOCIETY
MENSA SOCIETY
THE NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY
THE PLANETARY SOCIETY
THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA
SETI
SOCIEDAD ASTRONOMICA JUARENSE: SAJ
SOCIEDAD DE DIVULGACION DE ASTRONOMIA Y CIENCIA: SODIAC
SOCIEDAD DE LOUIS PASTEUR
THE SOCIETY OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS AND MARINE ENGINEERS
THE SOCIETY OF SMALL CRAFT DESIGNERS
----------------------------
What has all that to do with my writing? A lot. Authors
who take their craft seriously tend to write from their personal knowledge, experience
and the passion that pushes them to write. They write from a personal database, if you will, and what they
scribble on those napkins in restaurants late at night and into the wee
hours of the morn is based in their life's lessons and what they know,
or think they know.
We don't need to belabor that what they think
they know outweighs what they know substantially. It is
in keeping with the adage, "The more I know, the more I know I don't
know."
I have been on this planet quite a few years and in those years I've
been paying close attention to the things that happen around me and to
me. I've also been watching other people and their behavior, good
and bad, with considerable interest. I have learned much -- indeed, it's a
continuing process with no end in sight. Not a day goes by without my
learning something. I have what is known as an extreme autodidactic
personality and learn quickly. It has been both boon and bane, but we
won't elaborate on that.
It is this educational process, however it comes, that provides the
author with his/her knowledge base and center. As you can see from the
above, my files are filled mainly with tech stuff, most of it in the
areas of astronomy and astrophysics (math is assumed to play a huge
role in all that) as well as engineering and applied physics -- and a
smidge of psychology, microbiology, nanotechnology, and other esoteric
stuff.
I've also had the opportunity to build a sound foundation
of friends in the sciences upon whom I lean for help and guidance when
it is needed. They have been kind to me (most of the time) and patient beyond
the call. I am indebted to them.
That I write mainly in the SF realm then comes as no surprise. Of course,
I write in most of the genre (I don't like that word since it tends to denote
things written to a limited formula) and mix
them in many cases because the majority of stories demand it.



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