I was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Now, in my sixties, I live happily in Scottsdale, Arizona, among the saguaros and palm trees. From an early age, I found writing to be comforting and exhilarating. Since retiring in 2014 from corporate life, I've authored several books to pay tribute to vivid people and memories from my experiences in North Carolina, Missouri, Illinois and Arizona. From Fertile Ground, my first book, is a three-generation memoir and writer's mosaic about love and loss. It explores the importance of family and desire we each have to create our own path. My second book, Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator, includes stories from my Missouri childhood. It was a nonfiction semi-finalist at the 2017 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. The Missouri Historical Society selected both books for its collection of stories related to the history of the LGBTQ community in the Midwest. In 2018, I published An Unobstructed View. It chronicles an ironic year of surprise and transformation following a detour on the way west from Illinois to Arizona. It's an inspiring story of promise, perseverance and reflection. Published in 2021, my fourth book—I Think I'll Prune the Lemon Tree—is an anthology of thirty-nine serendipitous, provocative, and humorous essays set against the warm and rugged landscape of Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Published in April 2023, my latest book, A Path I Might Have Missed, is a collection of forty-two poems I wrote over thirty years. The poems reflect on love, loss, pain, discovery, truth, and transformation—spun through the wonder of words and ever-present influences of nature. To learn more about my books, and follow my blog, go to www.markjohnsonstories.com.