My friends call me Steve, my middle name. I hope I can make you a friend and that I can entertain you with some great stories that reflect a lifetime of experience and imagination.

A Blessed Life

My life has taken several turns over the years, some of them right, some of them wrong. Whichever way I turned I always learned from it and wrote about it. A couple of times I found myself in the middle of history in the making. In 1967 I was assigned to the U.S. Army Public Information Office at Long Binh, South Vietnam. I traveled the country and interviewed the troops from the DMZ to the Mekong River Delta. In 1968 I finished my last year in the Army in San Francisco surrounded by street riots and protests against the Vietnam War and the American military in general. It was a sad year for America, one that I am just now able to write about from the long telescope of hindsight.

After the army I got involved in a study group that explored the paranormal—hypnosis, prenatal regression, spirit channeling, and reincarnation. I will never forget the people in that group. I have written about them in my second novel, The Innocent And The Dead.

My Life Now

The best turn in my life came when I married Joyce Ann Messmore on January 8, 1972. Life has been sweet ever since. Life got even sweeter when our son Darren arrived on October 28, 1973. In January 2010 after I retired, Joyce and I volunteered to mentor elementary school children at Clarks Creek Elementary School in Plainfield, Indiana. We have worked with some great kids, some of them mature far beyond their years, some of them with family issues that broke our hearts. We also volunteer to help kids and teachers at White Oak Elementary in Avon, Indiana. I hope they all learned a lot from us. We have certainly learned a lot from them and their teachers.

My Friends The Writers

In 2002 I took over as head of the Avon Writers Group. We publish an anthology of poetry, short stories, personal memoirs, and essays. It’s called "Derivatives of Finn", and the little journal comes out at the end of every year. We got its name from something Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American fiction is derived from one book written by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”  If you live in the Indianapolis area and love to write, we would be glad to have you join us. Besides our little journal we practice impromptu writing exercises, critique each others writing and have some lively discussions about what makes good writing and the writing life.

The Avon Writers Group meets on the second Saturday of each month from 10:30a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Avon Public Library located at 498 N. State Road 267 in Avon. That's on the west side of St. Rd. 267 just north of the intersection with Rockville Road or U.S. Highway 36. For further details go to my contact page or E-mail me. 

[email protected]

The Avon Writers Group is on hold for the time being. The Avon Library is open, but the meeting rooms are closed until further notice. We're not going away. Please keep checking my website events tab to see the schedule for our next meeting. 

Notice

If you would please click on the books section and scroll all the way down to the end, you will find a short story made especially for small children. During the Covid 19 pandemic lock down, we all got a little stir crazy. I posted this on my website so everybody could read it for free. It's my way of reaching out. I hope everybody enjoys it.