Thank God for Mrs. Hibbard. She wrote my poem out in big letters on a one-foot-by-two-foot card and tacked it up on the blackboard with a big gold star. And thus, a poet was born in the first grade. But who can make a living on that? Common sense sidetracked me into the world of journalism, which was great for my ego, because I won dozens of writing and editing awards and ended up as the head honcho of a daily newspaper on the California coast. When you’re a newspaper publisher, everyone wants you on their boards and committees, because they think that will get them better media coverage (wrong), but that illusion allowed me to add a lot of directorships to my resume. A perfect life, some would say, but I could never quench the deep yearning to use words creatively – not just to inform, but to inspire, to entertain, to move you. That yearning finally had to be satisfied, and so my first novel, The Transition Witness, comes out on Kindle June 15 (print edition to follow). Now that I’ve given its characters life, one of them, Gemini, keeps screaming out for her story to be told. So I suppose a sequel must be written, and quickly, before readers forget about her. So please stay tuned. And meanwhile, I’d love to hear from you. You can e-mail me at transitionwitness@yahoo.com, or tweet me at @ttsalaky. Let me know if you want to be notified when the next book in the series comes out.