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EarlierI spent my youth moving about small towns and rural communities in Southwest Virginia and Northwest North Carolina. My post-secondary education was at Brigham Young University and Duke University.
LaterI served in France as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and, briefly, as a consultant in Taiwan, a teacher in Belize, and an adjunct professor at Southern Virginia University. In 2014 I retired from a thirty-year career with an NC health insurance company to become a writer, editor, and occasional publisher.
NowI'm currently writing a memoir of my father, posting sections here as I complete the rough draft. His traumatic death in 1977 still haunts me; I'm trying to understand it in as full a context as I can discover. Go to the Works in Progress tab to begin reading. Here are links to the parts published thus far:
Part 1, Preface - his difficult childhood, and Introduction: Daddy, His Brother, and the Country Bankers"--Daddy gets involved with the Duncan family and banking Part 2, Daddy Falls and Rises Again - Daddy fails in business and has a nervous breakdown Part 3, Men and Angels - Daddy often runs away from home, finds a kindly Mormon family in Idaho Part 4, The Devil in Man - Daddy sexually and physically abuses his daughter, my sister Part 5, Daddy Becomes Vice President, with a Digression on Timelines - Daddy gets involved in legally questionable work; an introduction to "The Conversation" and Martin S. Kaiser Part 6, The Northwestern Bank - A Country Bank Goes to Town - The crony culture of a fast-growing country bank with poor internal controls as it enters markets in large towns and cities Part 7, Bugging the Buggers - The culture of electronic surveillance in the 1960s; the bank bugs in the IRS Part 8, Guilt - Daddy tells the court how he planted the bug to eavesdrop in the IRS and becomes anguished by break the law Part 9, Whistleblower - Daddy becomes a confidential informant; the bank bugs the FBI; intimidation and his mental distress Part 10, Closing the Account (not yet draft or posted) My poetry has won several prizes from the North Carolina Poetry Society, including the Lena Shull Prize in 2015 for the full-length book, Mouth Work, published by St. Andrews University Press. In 2018, “The Creator Praises Birds” won the Clint Larson Poetry Award from BYU Studies Quarterly, and in 2022 "His Own Hand" won the "Body/Bodies of Christ" contest conducted by Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. In 2023, two poems--"The Pear" and "Earthworm Lore"--were among the 12 finalists in the Mormon Lit Blitz competition for micro-literature in all genres. My work has also been nominated four times for the Pushcart Poetry Prize. I live in Raleigh with my wife, Patti. |
Fog and Early Morning, Cynthia Reeves, 1985.
Cynthia Reeves was the half-sister of my paternal grandfather. I did not know of her existence until well after her death in 2001, when I was privileged to receive a number of her paintings. Born in the mountains of western North Carolina, she joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1948 and continued painting into her 90s, long after retirement and a move to Del Mar, CA.
Cynthia Reeves was the half-sister of my paternal grandfather. I did not know of her existence until well after her death in 2001, when I was privileged to receive a number of her paintings. Born in the mountains of western North Carolina, she joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1948 and continued painting into her 90s, long after retirement and a move to Del Mar, CA.
"Breathing smoke at the moon," an illustration by Katie LaRosa commissioned for Night Weather. Katie trained as a graphics designer at North Carolina State University. She also designed Night Weather.