coming of age - Stories

Earth-shattering events are few and far between, but when they come, they have lingering effects.

Two teenage boys were swept up by the winds of change, and punished for it. A firebrand reformer enlists the help of a reluctant correspondent, and both unwittingly help a department store man come up with a durable innovation to bring a little joy into people's lives.

A short story in four chapters set on the mountainous Italian coast. Seven years after ‘The Summer of the Firefly’, another teen struggles with his identity following a bust-up with his father and his best friend.

Twelve-year-old Simon stands in the play yard breaking his best friend's heart, and is doing it for all the 'wrong reasons' – reasons of fear-based bigotry and homophobia. He must decide whose side he is on, and remembers the school year as a series of ups and downs, and of joys and sorrows. One memory may be able to make him do the right thing after all, if he can accept its message.

Logan's summer as Recreation Assistant with the Forest Service turns into more than just campground maintenance and public relations.

Poems for Brian

Andy and Donnie have been friends since the beginning, growing up in the same neighborhood, sharing the same friends, and now playing football on the same team in middle school. They’ve been inseparable throughout it all; but now a new line has been inserted in the equation that is their lives, one they have to learn to deal with, or face having their friendship perish:

Love.

This is my second story. It is mostly nonfiction with a little fiction mixed in. It is based on an real-life experience of a close friend that I thought would make for a good short story. He provided the skeleton and I filled in the dialogue with his approval. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed hearing it recounted to me.

Pieces combining sections of prose and poetry

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Two boys from totally different backgrounds. Two different and equally dramatic histories. Two testing struggles. A tempestuous love affair in a provincial German town. Narrow-minded middle-class attitudes, venomous and hypocritical Catholic morality, archaic, harsh foreign prejudices. Street Art rebellion and a society basking in a false sense of security, ignoring the largest future natural disaster and the threat of war.

The book opens with two introductions and continues through a tumultuous series of events to a not quite inevitable conclusion!

Two misfits arrive on college campus at the same time. One a jock with some brains at least, the other a highly intelligent geek. Both devoid of social graces. They turn out to be roomies. A match made in heaven.. or hell?