The Author
Apr 1st, 2011 by admin
I was born in Oklahoma and spent my early youth in upstate New York. I graduated high school in 1965, started college that same year at the University of Oklahoma (OU), then dropped out and joined the Marine Corps in early 1966. I served a tour in Vietnam as a “grunt” from October 1966 to November 1967 assigned to Golf Company of the 26th Marine Regiment. I was wounded in May 1967, got out of the Marine Corps in December 1969, and immediately went back to OU where I graduated with an English Literature degree in 1977. After that, I completed two years of graduate-level literature studies, then went to work at OU until 1996.
I’m a life member of The American Legion, The Veterans of Foreign Wars, The Disabled American Veterans, and The Khe Sanh Veterans Association. I have several military awards including: the Purple Heart; a Combat Action Ribbon; a Presidential Unit Commendation Ribbon; a Vietnam Campaign Medal; a Vietnam Service Medal; two Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citations (the Gallantry Cross Medal and the Civic Actions Medal); a Good Conduct Medal; and the National Defense Service Medal.
In 1977, I was awarded the University of Oklahoma’s Vernon L. Parrington Writing Prize for a paper I wrote titled “Traces of Poe in Whitman.” Additionally, I have been published by Greenwood Press and in the following on-line journals: War, Literature and the Arts; Eclectica Magazine; Unlikely Stories; Octopus Beak, and Connecticut Review. Currently, I’m a writer living in Estes Park, Colorado. The Second Tour, my first novel, was begun in 1984 and took more than twenty-five years to complete. Many of my other works are accessible through Authors Den, a website for writers and readers. Please also visit me there if you’re interested in aspects of my work not discussed here.
Turning to my collective work, I think it’s difficult to define that which refuses to fit within a single genre or standard category. So I usually just call my stuff literary fiction because that’s what I strive for — a sense that what I’ve created is literature as opposed to “just a story” or “just a novel” — the distinction being that literature not only entertains but through metaphor achieves a didactic function as well. I therefore first and foremost seek that mysterious interface between form and function, i.e., the relationship between the structure of a piece and its message.
And I’ve often thought if all my work were ever showcased in one place, I’d like the collective novels called “Food for Thought Fiction,” because hopefully they make you think; and I’d like an anthology of the short stories called “Heads or Tails,” because when you try to pin them down, to label them, it’s a toss of the coin whether you’ve placed them in the right category.
Notice that I haven’t mentioned poetry. That’s because my “stuff” is so weak, so amateurish, it doesn’t rate mentioning, but if it were ever collected in one place I’d like it named “Craps,” after the game of chance. Nevertheless, I plug away at it hoping someday I’ll improve. I forget who once said (but I think it was Faulkner), that a novelist is a failed short story writer, and a short story writer is a failed poet. Could be some truth in that, but I don’t believe it for a second. I think we all write in whichever form speaks through us best at any given moment, whichever form best suits our immediate voice.
Anyway, perhaps it’s relevent that I was raised Italian-American in upstate New York, which gave me a strong sense of what it feels like to be discriminated against. And perhaps four years in the Marine Corps, including one in a warzone where I was wounded, gave me some further sense that all is not right in the world, that all these centuries later we shouldn’t still be killing each other with such abandonment, and even delight. And certainly my study of literature clarified for me a desire to write about war, especially its effects on “the little guy,” and particularly my psyche. But it wasn’t until some 20 years later that I found myself drawn to other subjects, for example veterans’ issues, strong women living difficult lives, and even children’s stories.
And maybe it’s relevent that my major literary influences have been the mid-19th century writers like Thoreau, Hawthorne and Melville, as well as the 20th century works of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. I’m especially drawn to anything with dark humor and contemporary writing aspects. My absolute favorite writer is Cormac McCarthy, whose command of the English language
supersedes that of anyone writing today. I’m so glad he finally got a Pulitzer, and that maybe now his masterpiece Blood Meridian will get the recognition it deserves.
It could further be relevent that over the past 25 years, I have become a big believer in therapeutic art (i.e., art as therapy), whether that art take the form of writing, music, painting, wood working, or any other creative means of channeling negative energies into positive outcomes. Specifically, what I’ve discovered is that writing can add a layer of fiction between its creator and his “real” or actual experience, that that layer of fiction creates a buffer zone within which the writer can “play around” with the experience in ways that are therapeutic. In essence, I’m saying my writing has become for me a lifeboat in an otherwise inner tempestuous storm of intrusive thoughts and feelings, and a legacy I can be proud of. That’s not to say that art erases the turbulence, not by any stretch, but rather that it provides a means of psychic survival. I’m very thankful for that, personally, and I hope my work can provide some similar value for readers.
Let me add one final thought: I like to think I was born a warrior with the fighting skills of a stuffed toy — so here’s hoping my pen is mightier than a sword.
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