Accidents of Time and Place

I began my career as a twelve-year-old in Greensboro, North Carolina. That was when radio was still the primary means of mass entertainment. There were daily and weekly dramatic programs, often locally produced, and I loved them. Probably having to use my imagination to fill in the picture part drew me to the medium. WWII had ended only a year or so before, and some new people in town started a once-a-week radio workshop for young people. We acted in dramas written for radio by some of the best writers of the time, and there I discovered that I loved words, as much for their own sake as for what they could say. With a few sideslips into other fields, I continued to work in front of microphones as a performer and announcer all through high school and college. My writing life truly began in my last year of college, when I sold two radio plays to a production company in California. Unfortunately radio as I knew it was in its last days, and even though I worked for a while after college in a small station in the Pennsylvania coal fields, I was ready when the call came, to go from radio performer to filmmaker.

One of my jobs while in college was as a carpenter for a film company. In my off hours I discovered film production, and briefly apprenticed to the company's cinematographer. I also put my hand to editing and general production tasks. From a major in-house film unit, where I worked on documentary and educational productions, I went to a Washington, D.C. studio to write a syndicated television program. In less than three years, as one of two writers on the show, I wrote half of the more than 100 filmscripts in the series. From there, as a freelancer and a staff writer, I created scripts on demand, with about 700 of them produced. I wrote about agriculture and medicine, politics and art, history and religion. Some I not only wrote, but produced, directed, shot and edited too. And of course, I occasionally voiced the narration. Once an actor, always a ham!

Shortly after I was hired to write that early TV series, I was at a party at the Georgetown home of the senior writer.  One of the other guests was an attractive young woman, so naturally we began talking.  "What do you do?" she asked. "I'm a writer."  "What do you write?"  "At the moment I'm writing a television series about American industry."  "Oh," she said with disdain, "Television!"  "And what do you do?"  "I'm a writer," she replied.  "And what do you write?"  "Oh, the world isn't ready for my writing," she sadly replied. "Nor for mine.  But I write every day so that when the world is ready for my writing, I will be ready for the world." 

Finally, about five years ago, I decided to devote my creative time to fiction. Accidents of Time and Place, and a dozen short stories, is the result of that commitment. I am currently at work on another novel, about fathers and sons and daughters. Watch for it here. The world is finally ready for my writing.