I'm very happy to be entering the fray of this incredible community of creative writers. I've finally freed the chains of my professional career that - for many years - tied up my hope of  bringing to life the many stories I've lived that go a long way to explain the place this world of ours finds itself at today.  

I  spent my professional career as a strategist, adviser and program manager to many public, private and not-for-profit organizations. One of my greatest gifts that kept me very active over the years was my ability to research, capture, package and create highly focused and compelling content. Whether tasked with producing long-range strategic plans, creating unique market-facing messaging or delivering a presentation at professional events, my creative juices went into high gear. 

Growing up the fifth of six children in a rural, blue collar farm region of Upstate NY, I didn't envision a future that would land me in college. Like most others who grew up in that setting, you would have your eye on working the farms, getting a job at a local factory or enlisting in the military after high school. I was blessed when a college placed its bet on me making it possible for me to break the mold. It was in the Fall of 1977 when I entered college that I learned that I had some catching up to do when it came to my writing and reading skills. So I made the bold move to take on a Minor in Communications on top of my Business & Engineering degree.  A program that changed my life, providing me all of the development and support to bring forward my gift for writing. 

Fast forward ... I was at a retreat this past Fall as I took my first steps to gain insight into how to best begin my journey to pivot to creative writing.  I was very fortunate to join a program for wannabe writers being held that week by a well-regarded writer and journalist from San Francisco - Laura Hilgers.  After a number of class exercises, Laura reinforced my strength as a writer but also affirmed that I had no lack of interesting stories - both personally and professionally - that would gain great interest in the markets. She advised me to focus on personal essays and opinion pieces in the early going, aware that I've been framing an initial book that speaks to a divided country that has to find a pathway to peace and respect for one another or reach the point of no return.

Although I'm just now kicking off my writing efforts in earnest, I look very forward to working with a number of you over the months and years ahead as I get on with my next chapter.

   I became interested in the history of the Black Caribs or Garifuna people of St. Vincent Island in the Eastern Caribbean while researching for a humanities/history thesis. These unique people are a blended mix of mostly native Carib Amerindians and escaped African slaves who fled to or were shipwrecked on St. Vincent Island in the 17th and 18th centuries. I continued reading about the Caribs after completing a thesis on the Second Carib War, visited the island four times, and also the last Carib reservation on Dominica to view their mock up traditional village. I determined to write a historical novel about the ethnogenesis of this unique people, the last Caribbean indigenous ethnic group to resist European imperialism. What started as a single historical novel morphed into nine after I read more and more about the history of Atlantic Slavery and how this influenced bringing the diversity of people to the Caribbean that likely contributed to the genetic mix that is the Garifuna people.

To improve my writing skills I began taking online courses and eventually was accepted into Stanford University's Online Writing Certificate Program. I completed that program in 2016 and a novel, Chatoyer: Freedom's War Chief as my capstone project. This novel recounts the career of St. Vincent and the Grenadines' national hero, a Black Carib chief who led his people's efforts at retaining their sovereignty and home territory in the 18th century. I hybrid published this book in October of 2022 through Book Baby and it is now available for sale.

I completed  the University of California, Riverside's Limited Residence MFA/Fiction Program in 2020, along with another novel as a thesis, The Mercenary. This novel depicts the adventures of a 17th century Bantu herdboy who is sold into slavery during a famine, goes to Angola, where he is captured by Imbangala land pirates and made into a child soldier. He fights in several historic battles against the Portuguese, is taken to Brazil, where he a fights for the Portuguese, becomes a slave catcher, then joins Quilomobo dos Palmares, a republic made up of escaped slaves. His previous role is discovered and he flees with a Tupi family across the length of Brazil to the Guianas and eventually to St. Vincent where he joins the Caribs with his new Tupi wife.

I have a total of nine novels tracing the history of the Caribs beginning with their migration in arount 1200 from South America to the islands, where they killed the Arawak men already settled there and took their women as wives. I have separate novels depicting vaious fictional Native American, African, and Irish individuals brought to the Caribbean as forced labor who eventually end up on St. Vincent and join the Black Caribs. My last novel is based on the memoirs of a French lieutenant during the French Revolution who witnesses the final defeat and exile of the Black Caribs at the end of the 18th century, and was their ally.

I am a member of four writers' groups, attend conferences, and belong to the Historical Novel Society. My background is as an overseas teacher at the secondary and university levels. I taught history and anthropology and coached afterschool sports in Panama, next to the Canal, for 27 years. Then taught college for the military communities in Japan, Italy, and Spain before retiring to California. I have a BA in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology, MAs in Education/PE, Humanities/History, Anthropology, Fine Arts/Fiction, and a Ph.D. in Education.

Deus Ex Machina Advanced Writers Collective:
A vetted network of professional, advanced, and serious writers working in the literary arts and scripted film & television in the following mediums and genres: fiction/ novels, creative non-fiction/ personal essay, memoir, poetry, auto-fiction, hybrid/experimental, screenwriting, drama, dramedy, rom-com, musicals, sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, historical fiction, kidlit, middle-grade, YA, LGBTQ, Queer, BIPOC, Asian, Latinx and more.

*This is a horror-free space (including all sub-genres of horror: comedy, speculative, thriller, true crime, etc.). No excessive gore, shock factor, or gratuitous violence.

I've worked in the wellness and education fields and have always enjoyed writing as a contribution to the work.  I'm currently exploring fiction writing and looking for a group to connect with peers and stretch my skills.

I'm author of several published nonfiction titles (The Harmonium Handbook, Solving Stress, and two other self-published works, Finding Focus and Mystic Microsoft) and am a recently retired content developer from Microsoft where I published four hefty software development tomes over the years.

In addition to homeschooling my teenage son in his high school years, I'm now pursuing fiction and literary works that have been rolling around in my mind and have more ideas than I can possibly ever produce. My son is also interested in fantasy/sci-fi writing and we're working together on a novel-writing curriculum. Being new to the creative fiction scene, I'm actively studying both the craft and aspects of the writing business.

A particular interest of mine is exploring fiction that explores universal spirituality (in terms of an expansive awareness, higher consciousness, connection/devotion to a greater reality, etc.) vs. that which is more religious, sectarian, didactic, or occult in nature.

I am a hobby writer at the moment. I began my writing career while in middle school, writing a weekly article in the local newspaper about what was happening in the middle school. After many years of inactivity, I was instructed to start a journal, and while I was initially reluctant, I soon found joy in writing once again. A few years back, I worked for a short time writing for a different local newspaper full-time. For the past several years I have been attempting to write a book. I have started many and finished none. I want to find a group that will provide accountability, constructive criticism, and hopefully some stimulating conversation. I would love for it to also be a book club. 

Without particularly planning it, I find myself writing a collection of historical fiction which ranges in subject from the Wordsworths & Coleridge to one about Shackleton's dog. I'm self-taught and write catch-as-catch-can, and read mostly older fiction, steering warily around the modern-day tone of fiction which seems suddenly so prevalent. That said, there are many current writers I admire: Colum McCann; Cormac McCarthy; Annie Proulx etc. 

I'm always looking for readers and editors, and of course I greatly look forward to repaying the favor. 

Hi, I'd like to work on my poetry.  I have not participated in any workshops before, though I'm familiar with the basic structure.  I taught college writing as a grad student.  Now I want to focus on my own creative writing.  My current project, inspired by Jackie Wang's The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void and Richard Hugo's 31 Letters & 13 Dreams, is to find a way to translate dreams into poems.