Welcome to My Author Portfolio
I caught part of the Kentucky Derby on NBC today. The two most exciting minutes in sports preceded by the five most boring hours in sports. Jim McIngvale a.k.a "Mattress Mack" bet 2.4 million on Essential Quality which finished fourth. Kiss that money good-bye, Mack. The winner, Medina Spirit, won in just over two minutes. At 1.25 miles, that's 37.3 miles per hour. The world's record for a man running the mile is 3 minutes 43 seconds which comes out to 16.15 miles per hour. But speed PER LEG it's a lot closer, 9.325 mph to 8.075, with horses still coming out ahead. The difference must be that little guy on top with a whip. I liked Helium based solely on the name. It came in eighth. Soup and Sandwich came in dead last. And you have to admit that is one lousy name for a horse, but still better than Destiny's Glue or Just Shoot Me.
P.S. Hold your Horses! Medina Spirit has tested positive for betamethasone and may be disqualified. Owner Baffert says, "I don't know nothin' about no banned substances."
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 (forthcoming)
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
Pity The Reader by Suzanne McConnell
At Home by Bill Bryson
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.
