Why?

A Word from the Author:
If you ever took my Cre­ative Writ­ing class, you prob­a­bly heard me say at one time or anoth­er, “If you want to be a writer, you have to devel­op a strong ego.” I say this for two rea­sons: first, a writer has to believe that he has some­thing to say–that what goes on in his brain is wor­thy of oth­er people’s atten­tion. If you feel that, you’ll need to write. Sec­ond, a writer has to be able to deal with rejec­tion. Get­ting pub­lished is a bitch. I have a fold­er at home full of rejec­tion slips. 

I have been lucky enough to have three books pub­lished, two by a big-city inter­na­tion­al house (Dell Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny, New York) and one by a local press (Coro­na, San Anto­nio). All three were well-received, crit­i­cal­ly speak­ing. How­ev­er, I have writ­ten four oth­er nov­els, one epic, four screen­plays, a book of essays, a col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, and a mem­oir (thus the strong but bat­tered ego). Pub­lish­ing is a crap­shoot, and the writer is at the whim of who­ev­er read­er from what­ev­er pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny picks up his man­u­script in how­ev­er mood under whoso­ev­er eco­nom­ic conditions.

Not any­more. Through the pow­er of the inter­net and the e‑reader, I can be the author, edi­tor, pub­lish­er, cov­er design artist, type­set­ter, copy­read­er and pub­li­cist of my own work. I have dis­cov­ered my own lit­tle pub­lish­ing empire. And you have found it.

Then I had anoth­er thought. Not only do I have a boat­load of things I’ve writ­ten that I’d like to share with the world, but I also have access to a vaster boat­load of won­der­ful­ly writ­ten words, beau­ti­ful pho­tographs, and astound­ing videos that I have acquired over the years—the work of my stu­dents in my class­es. So I want to cre­ate a forum in which I can share those things that I want to share and also offer a glimpse at the genius I’ve encoun­tered in my teach­ing career. (As much as pos­si­ble, I will try to con­tact these artists and get their per­mis­sion to post their work. In some cas­es, not even I will be sure who wrote the poem or took the pic­ture or direct­ed the video. )

Read­ing has been the most last­ing and sub­lime plea­sure through­out my life. A read­er dis­cov­ers worlds, expe­ri­ences adven­tures, explores emo­tion­al highs and lows; a read­er looks into the human soul. A read­er is nev­er bored, because read­ing fires the imag­i­na­tion, feeds the brain, and fuels the heart. If you’ve found this web­site and read this far, you prob­a­bly already know what I’m talk­ing about.

The bot­tom line is this: a writer wants to be read. A writer wants to tap into that fer­tile ground where imag­i­na­tion and intel­lect meet and words trans­form. Putting the words on the page is the cre­ative act, and it brings a cer­tain sat­is­fac­tion. Hav­ing peo­ple read the words is the ful­fill­ment of that act. An artist wants peo­ple to see his work. 

So I went back and looked at my work and decid­ed it was good. (There’s that ego again!) Instead of hid­ing it in a fil­ing cab­i­net, I want­ed it out there, avail­able to what­ev­er read­ers I am able to attract. True, in a few cas­es con­tem­po­rary fic­tion has turned into his­tor­i­cal fiction—it nev­er hurts to look at the past. Though much of my work might be clas­si­fied as Young Adult, I nev­er wrote for kids—I wrote for people.

Now I’m look­ing for a lit­tle ful­fill­ment. If you’ve got­ten this far and are still inter­est­ed, browse my web­site. Read the Library descrip­tions and see if a book catch­es your atten­tion. If so, read it. Be sure to check out the Pho­to of the Week and the For­mer Stu­dent Writ­ing of the Week, and the Video of the Month under the You and Me tab. If you hap­pen to read one of my books and it meets your approval, the high­est com­pli­ment you could pay me is to read anoth­er. The sec­ond high­est would be to tell a friend about my web­site. Word of my mouth is my best hope.

Final­ly, this method of pub­lish­ing opens up one aspect of the author/reader rela­tion­ship that I have nev­er explored—easy access to the author. As a read­er, I always have ques­tions pop into my head as I’m read­ing: Why’d the writer do that? What does this mean? Could that even hap­pen? Are you freak­ing kid­ding me? It also opens the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re-estab­lish­ing con­tact with some of my for­mer stu­dents and let­ting them know how much their work had an impact on me. Con­tact me through my web­site. I’ll answer. Promise.