My Song of Myself

Sounding my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world

I’ve been a high school English teacher for 31 years. I’ve taught AP Lit, College Writing, Creative Writing, and ACT Prep. I enjoy writing poetry, memoirs, short fiction, and literary analysis. My beautiful wife of 26 years and I have 4 children ranging from 16 to 24.
  • I’m long overdue to start writing again. As a 31 year veteran high school English teacher I’m surrounded by great writing everyday. My classroom shelves are filled with powerful and gorgeous writers. I love books. That’s why I became an English teacher. I also love to read and interact with developing writers. Yes, I do read a lot of terrible writing, but when the light bulb turns on for those few writers who start to get it, it makes all the rubbish I read worthwhile.

    When I teach my creative writing classes or run my summer creative writing workshops, I always get the itch to write more. I sometimes share my work with students, but much of what I share is decades old. Now that most of my kids are raised and retirement is visible on the horizon, I am left without excuse.

    30 years ago, my college creative writing teacher invited me to submit a short story to a publication and I got my first story published. It was a joyful revelation that there was a writer buried inside of me. This blog is an attempt to come out of my cave into the light again. Like Whitman, “I celebrate myself and sing myself.”

    And so I begin…again.

    Photo by CARYN MORGAN on Pexels.com