Mountain Lake

                Welcome to my web site.

Please feel free to snoop around, kick the tires, and take my website for a test drive—it needs the exercise. As the name implies, my short stories are short. They portray an eclectic range of topics from humor to sadness, from the reality of war to my award-winning perception of an Alzheimer's patient. Hopefully, there is something here to please the taste of everyone's literary palate.

I am not a poet. The poem I Have Been to the Wall is my one-and-only poetic adventure. It will never win awards, nor will it find its way into a poetry book. It was written for my pleasure and not for an external audience. Many veterans, however, have found it moving and worth the read. As of this writing, the poem has been viewed by individuals from forty-five countries.

I have written five novels over the past ten years. Unfortunately, they are still awaiting a sympathetic publisher. I have posted synopses of the novels as well as the first chapters for any editors who might stumble across this website.

In 1999 I was diagnosed with vocal chord cancer. This was a stressful period in my life when it was unclear if I would ever talk again, let alone survive. With no voice and nothing better to do, I began e-mailing friends with humorous descriptions of my medical plight. Today, it would be called a blog. The medical updates were well received with many people demanding to be added to my e-mail list. When I finished my treatment, I had over sixty people on the list and more were asking for reprints. At their request, I attached the letters to a website and dismissed them. Years later, I added a counter to the site, which logged the number of hits as well as the location of the searcher (city and state). I had assumed only people I referred to the site were visiting. To my surprise, I discovered I had visitors from forty countries and still counting. Cancer knows no borders. The letters are long and of little interest except to cancer patients and their families.

Lastly, for the benefit of other writer want-a-be's, I have listed some writing rules I have accumulated over the years. Some may be controversial, but they have served me well. Enjoy.