Look and Listen

Biography

A CA native, I now live in Las Vegas. Both my parents were part Cherokee Indian. As a child I learned to sort rubble into mineral bearing ore versus plain rock on my grandparent’s copper and gold mine. Crossroads, the nearest town was thirty unpaved, washboard miles away. We had no electricity, and hauled water from the Colorado River. Fresh meat consisted of rabbits and quail drilled from our cabin window by my crack-shot grandmother. I taught school for nearly twenty years, sold real estate, owned and operated an import/export business, and currently work as a vocational counselor. Other publications: Small Pony a children’s book in the library systems of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Riverside CA. I wrote Import/Export and You as a text book for classes I taught at the Community College of Southern Nevada. Mini Tales, Short mysteries for busy people. was published in 2005. I have been published in Cynic Online, and I won the Review Journal Christmas story contest in 2007.My book, Ghosts & Gamblers is currently being sold through Amazon and Lamoo. In addition, I have stories in The Writers Bloc for 2006 and 2008. My latest book,A Life of Crime is now ready for publication. I read six to eight books a month, mostly mysteries, adventure and historical fiction. Living a rather isolated life as a child we turned to story telling as a means of entertainment. This has carried though into adulthood and I still enjoy reading and writing a good tale.

Inspiration

My inspiration was probbly more desperation. An only child, I lived on a mine site with my grandparents. We had no TV, scanty radio reception and news from papers came from our once a month trips to town. Story telling became our form of entertainment. We could say any outlandish thing we wanted to as long as it was labeled a "fish story".My grandmother told stories fantasizing about houses with hot and cold running water, we had to haul water from the Colorado River. My stories were usually about my adventures with indians and riding wild horses. I also liked stories abut my fictional friend,Nacoma, an indian girl who lived in a cave near our mine.