Bio
I hail from Green Bay, Wisconsin – from the near west side known in the old days as Goose Town. Life was grand. Food and fun were plentiful. Love abounded in family and friends and church. School was easy. Horizons were open and bright with promise back then in the 1950’s and early 60’s. And my first dream was to be an author.
Along the way I worked as a Navy guy aboard ship, a pastor of churches, an elected official of a denomination, a chaplain of nursing homes. And I wrote a lot – poems, short stories, term papers as a graduate student, sermons as a pastor, speeches as a bureaucrat, poems, newspaper articles, essays, memoir, and more poems. Always poems for over thirty-five years now. Many submissions led to a few dozen minor publications. No books other than self-publishing two collections of poetry: Isle of Dreams in 2002, and Shades of Gray in 2005.
Then I discovered a publisher – North Star Press of St. Cloud – that is positive, supportive and encouraging of my work. And the book action started in 2008, and continues on in creative and thrilling ways. The horizons are brightening.
I live in Waconia in the west metro area of the Twin Cities – and describe myself as an early retiree pastor now refiring as a nursing home chaplain, and author in search of honestly making meanings and keeping memories alive. Writing in public hangouts feels more than natural to me and enhances my folksy, down to earth, straightforward style of simplicity in playing with words, images and metaphors in poetic expressions of the experiences and relationships of life. All for the creative purpose of being real and more real.