How great writing transforms us — We work through book after book and spend weekend afternoons in used bookstores because we’re all looking for it…the next book that will change our lives. We read with a constant hope that words, paragraphs and chapters will take us someplace new. We don’t just pick up books for entertainment. We certainly don’t read just to learn. We read to be transported and transformed.

A Short Story Bill Wade never shut up and he knew better than most how to keep a conversation going, building additions onto narratives right after you’d made your excuses and turned a foot towards the door. He started in excited short bursts and settled into long meandering phrases, liberally…

A Western ‘Keen observation George, keen fuckin observation. All the shit that was today but you’re right — it didn’t rain. Thank the Lord Almighty for that. Walked all day but I’m dry to the fucking bone.’ ‘Just saying we saw them clouds this mornin but it never did rain.’ …

a story — the quartzite summits of the Twelve Bens lend shadow and supply — running off rainwater to the Owenglin River as it bends past marble quarries and Clifden Castle through Connemara and on to Ardbear Cottages where in 1848 a young man departed for a new world and a life shortly lived…

A story — I first heard about the lions roaming Main Street in the local paper and how the male rested his formidable hind legs in the shade of the elm tree in front of Weston’s Grocery while the females roamed the boulevard hunting squirrels and wild turkeys and an occasional deer turning Packard’s Meadow into the Serengeti as we all stayed home for…

a story — some people have an innate ability to throw — and land an earthshattering punch My cousin Craig was blessed with this gift and for most of a week all anyone in town talked about was the sound of the hit and Joe Willis’ motionless body softened against the dusty floor of Casey’s Bar he was out long enough that…