A Short Biography
I was born on the Winter’s Solstice when the Second World War was wearing down, in the state of Ohio: the province of Buckeyes. I delivered the Dayton Daily News, played Little League baseball, was an acolyte in the Episcopal Church…and in the third grade wrote my first novel “The Adventures of Corny Carrot and Happy Tooth”, beautifully illustrated by my brother Denny, who would grow up to be a professional artist. It was an idyllic childhood, and somehow the MacArthur Foundation missed us. Then we moved outside of New York City where I gave up Little League to become a theatre aficionado. New York was another galaxy compared to Dayton with museums, great restaurants, and an overwhelming cosmopolitan atmosphere.
I went to Baldwin-Wallace College (now a university), and graduated with a major in English, the perfect qualification for carrying the machine-gun for the Wolfhounds. I spent every day of 1969 in Vietnam missing out on Woodstock, the protest movement, and the whole feeling of change in music, arts, literature, politics, and how men and women related to each other. Afterwards, I first was a full-time substitute teacher in D.C. trying to save the world. When you’re in a sea filled with drowning people, you’re lucky to save a few.
I started Booeymonger Delis (in D.C.) with Les Samuel & Ronnie Vogel, which had a good run for awhile for me, but eventually I started Planet Wayside with my wife, where a pick-up truck would be parked next to a Rolls, and Madeleine Albright and Robert DuVall were regulars. All this time, from college through the Army and so on…I wrote novels…and put them away in a literary time capsule.
After 17 years at the Planet my wife died. Then my house burned to the ground. These omens told me it was time to move on, and between odd jobs and being a waiter at the fabulous Generals’ Quarters Restaurant I wrote…and I wrote with earnest, and dedication.
The First Door is the Final Exit is my first novel to debut, a love story within a war novel within the events of 1969.
What's Next?
The author is currently fishing for metaphors in a sea of hyperbole, while working on a murder mystery/psycho drama novel entitled Darkness at the Edge of Tomorrow.