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Image by Jessica Fadel

 

                                                           WELCOME  TO  MY  AUTHOR  PORTFOLIO

 

April is the cruellest month—so begins Thomas Stearnes Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” …breeding Lilacs out of dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain

 

Sadly, tragedy and April go hand in hand.  Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 as he and Mary Todd Lincoln enjoyed the play Our American Cousin  just five days after Lee surrendered to Grant.

 

There was the great San Francisco earthquake in 1906, believed to have been on the magnitude of 8.0 on the Moment Magnitude scale--which replaced the Richter scale in 1970. Forty seconds of terror at 5:12 in the morning. April 26 is National Richter Scale Day, celebrating Charles Francis Richter  although his eponymous scale is now out of favor.

 

There was also the sinking of the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic in 1912.

 

April was cruel to Manfred von Richthoven, known as the Red Baron. The WW I German ace was shot down on April 21, 1918 near Vaux-sur-Somme, a tiny village north of Paris. I think we all know who might have been responsible for that.

Snoopy vs. the Red Baron was recorded in 1966 by The Royal Guardsmen. The song peaked at number 2 on the Hot 100 the last week in 1966, behind The Monkees' I'm a Believer.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more
The Bloody Red Baron was rollin' up the score
Eighty men died tryin' to end that spree
Of the Bloody Red Baron of Germany

In the nick of time, a hero arose
A funny-looking dog with a big black nose
He flew into the sky to seek revenge
But the Baron shot him down ("Curses, foiled again!")

Now, Snoopy had sworn that he'd get that man
So he asked the Great Pumpkin for a new battle plan
He challenged the German to a real dogfight
While the Baron was laughing, he got him in his sight

April is also the month in which the Masters Golf Tournament is played .

PUBLISHED  STORIES  AND  ESSAYS

construction, protection, life safety fundamentals, brainstorming and creativity concept.

HARD  KNOCKS
(CLICK ON LINK AND SCROLL DOWN TO PAGE 31)

UFO, an alien plate hovering over the field, hovering motionless in the air. Unidentified

PLACES TO GO, THINGS TO SEE

Missing piece of the puzzle, white puzzle pieces on blue background.jpg

MISSING

Antique Shop

JUNK, READY TO BUY

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
News Item
The Visitor
Mr. Blinkie To The Rescue
The Point System
Elements Of Success 
She Spits to Conquer
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 
The Last Hundred Days

Plight Of the Humble Bee

Books

AWARDS AND HONORS

               

 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

2021   Second place Streetlight Magazine's Flash fiction contest

2021   Second place Seven Hills contest for flash fiction

2021    Second place Seven Hills contest for essay/memoir

2021     Third place Seven Hills contest for non-fiction

 2022     First Place Seven Hills contest for flash fiction

Writing on Computer

"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

Old Book

CURRENTLY READING

...or just finished

Absalom Absalom by William Faulkner

Where The Past Begins by Amy Tan
The Order Of Time by Carlo Rovelli

Pile Of Books

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.

ballpitphoto2.jpg
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