I
was born in Birmingham, Alabama. I
have two brothers and one sister. At
age 5, I was crazy about dinosaurs, because of Syd Hoff’s book, Danny and
the Dinosaur. I checked out
all the dinosaur and fossil books I could find and dreamed of being a
paleontologist. Dinosaurs were my
proof that fantastic creatures really could exist, and that meant anything
was possible. I also loved Dr.
Seuss’ books.
My
parents read to us at bedtime, and my mother read lots of poetry to us, from
an anthology called “My Poetry Book.”
My siblings and I always had lots of books of our own, and my mother
took us to the library frequently. All
these things helped put me on the path to being a writer.
I
liked Warner Brothers cartoons and my favorite is the one about the singing
frog. Other favorite shows were Underdog
and Creature Feature, a Saturday afternoon monster movie
double-feature.
When
I was 11, I used to make 8mm sci-fi movies with a friend of mine and
occasionally we would write stories. We
liked watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and I’ve loved that silly
brand of comedy ever since. As
a teenager, I backpacked 50 miles on the Appalachian Trail with the Boy
Scouts. I was drum major for my
High School marching band, and I played trumpet in Symphonic Band.
I also learned to play guitar and spent lots of time drawing spaceships
and playing baseball.
My
favorite childhood books were:
Horton
Hears a Who
by Dr. Seuss,
Danny
and the Dinosaur
by Syd Hoff,
The
Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster
The
Mouse and the Motorcycle
by Beverly Cleary
any
book by Jack London
any
book by Ray Bradbury. (He really
captures the feeling of being a child.)
Alfred
Hitchcock’s Monster Museum
- a collection of scary stories by various authors
The
Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
The
Mysterious Island,
by Jules Verne
The
Time Machine,
by H.G. Wells
Dune,
by Frank Herbert
My
favorite all-time books are:
The
Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings, by Tolkien
Siddhartha,
and other books by Hermann Hesse
any
book by Joseph Campbell
The
Artist’s Way,
by Julia Cameron
The
Alchemist,
by Paolo Coelho
The
Old Man and the Sea,
and short stories by Hemingway
Lord
of the Flies,
by William Golding
I
became interested in writing in third grade because of my 3rd grade
English teacher, Mrs. Williams. She
gave us assignments that were well above our heads, but we didn’t know we
couldn’t do them, so we did them. My
high school English teacher, Sylvia Sarrett, was also a great writing coach,
as was my college writing professor, Sterling Watson.
The
strangest job I ever had was narrator/guide on the African Queen Boat
Ride at Busch Gardens, Tampa. (Unfortunately,
this ride no longer exists.) The
ride had real animals like crocodiles, rhinos, and spider monkeys.
Noisy macaws rode on the back of the boats and squawked in your ears at
1 million decibels. Sometimes
they would fly off into the “jungle” and you had to jump off your boat and
go get them because they were expensive.
When you cruised through the sleeping village, a warrior would jump out
and give heart attacks to the people in your boat.
After graduating college, I worked on tv commercials as a grip, crane
operator, sound recordist, camera assistant, writer, and editor.
In later years, I focused on editing and writing and worked for many
years in Atlanta as a freelance writer/producer for television.
I’ve written for a number of children’s education programs for
Georgia Public Television, and I did some writing for a PBS program called
“Life on the Internet.” I
love to paint, and for a couple of years, I taught painting classes at our
local Arts Center.
My
hobbies are playing guitar, painting, traveling, browsing at used cd/dvd
stores, and going to see movies.