Welcome to My Author Portfolio
It's July fourth and Wimbledon is taking the day off. Fortunately for sports fans, there's the Nathan's Famous annual hot dog eating contest live from Coney Island broadcast on ESPN. Joey Chestnut, the favorite, is going for his fourteenth straight title, along with a few other also rans--or also crams. The women's event was earlier, Michelle Lesco winning with 30 hot dogs eaten in ten minutes. She boasts a career DPM (dogs per minute) of 2.66. Thankfully I've recorded the men's event so I can fast forward. Contestants, the rules state, will be disqualified for "a reversal of fortune." As a spectator, fast forward helps me not get disqualified. Still, I can't help but wonder what jollies are happening down in Mr. Stomach, Mr. Small intestine, and Mr. Colon. This year's contest is taking place at Maimonidies Park. I feel like the great Jewish philosopher would amend one of his quotes...give a man a hot dog and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to eat competitively and you feed him for a lifetime. Plus everyone else will lose their appetite.
PUBLISHED STORIES AND ESSAYS
OTHER PUBLISHED STORIES... AND ESSAYS
How To Eat Right
How To Manage Your Money
How To Stay Healthy
The Fall Of Squirrel
Cake Walk
Do-gooders Gotta Eat Too
Of Peas and Queues
Three O'clock in the Garden of Good and Evil
A Star Falls on Alabama
News Item
The Visitor
Mr. Blinkie To The Rescue
The Point System
Elements Of Success
She Spits to Conquer
So THAT's What Happened
The Tree Remembers
Christmas Time Is Here
The Sodfather
What MLK Day Means To Me
Thanks, Mussolini
The Cure
Tarzan In Decline
Side Effects
Greatest Of All Time
AWARDS AND HONORS
2013 First Place Humor Division Alabama Writers Conclave (AWC) Contest
2014 Finalist PNWA Competition Short Topics Category
2015 First Place Creative Non-Fiction Division AWC Contest
2016 Second Place Fiction Gulf Coast Writers Let's Write Contest
2017 Pushcart Prize nomination from Hawaii Pacific Review for The Last Hundred Days
2018 First Honorable Mention Short Story Division AWC contest
2018 Second Place Chattahoochee Valley Contest Short Story category
2019 First Place Flash Fiction Division AWC contest
2020 First Place Essay Streetlight Magazine
2020 Top ten finalist for The Opossum Prize
2020 Honorable Mention Stories That Need To Be Told Anthology
2020 First place Flash Fiction category in Seven Hills contest
"Life is a moderately good play with a poorly written third act."
Truman Capote
"Writers aren't people exactly. Or, if they're any good, they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
CURRENTLY READING
...or just finished
The Alchemist by Paola Coelho
Inheritance by Dani Shapiro
Acknowledgments: Photos of Stonehenge courtesy of Trevor S. Key from our trip to England in 2015. Photos of ball pit courtesy of Amelia C. Key from our trip to NYC in 2019. Other photos purchased from Shutterstock.
