Autumn 2026

 This is my favorite time of the year. Unlike spring, which teases you with a gradual warming and the appearance of tiny buds, an autumn blast of cold, wet weather says, "I'm here!" I've always associated autumn with change, a holdover I suppose from my days in school since fall meant the start of something big and new.

With that, I'll segue into my newest book, a collection of my short stories, which I describe this way:

Seventeen stories that reach backwards and forwards through the infinity of the cosmos. A look back at the past. A gaze across the present. A glimpse into the future. Adventures undone by hubris, vengeance, and treachery. Dark fantasy. Mad science. High crimes. The supernatural. When the cosmos is broken, prepare for the worst.

Get a copy here.  

The cover screams: Wow! Colin Graham of Mark Graham Communications outdid himself.

Also recently, a book I had co-authored with a client of Mark Graham Communications won a Silver Medal in Memoir/Biography from the Military Writers Society of America. It's a great story about service and sacrifice, love and loss, during World War Two. Available here.

 For the last several years, our home Halloween decorations have been getting more and more elaborate. This year, we've decided to give the porch Catrina a break and instead devoted our efforts into creating our interpretation of The Wicker Man, a cult-favorite on DVD.

I sketched a basic idea and from there proceeded on a seat-of-the pants basis as my summer project. Knowing the final statue would be about 12 feet tall and heavy, I made him in modular sections. To keep costs down, I used discarded lumber as much as possible though I sought to make this thing as sturdy as practical as I didn't want it to fall over or break into pieces should bad weather hit. (Which hasn't, so far.) Besides standing a pair of stout legs bolted to a sheet of hardboard, I also braced him to collar fitted over a brick pillar. He needed an eerie sound ambience so I played the recording of a didgeridoo thorough a Bluetooth speaker in his head. My neighbors love him.

 What's next for our Wicker Man? We're planning for an appropriate demise in a pagan-fest bonfire.