Born into a family of storytellers, I learned early that the first liar doesn’t stand a chance and an entertaining fabrication was sometimes sufficient to distract an adult long enough for them to forget how mad they are.

I started writing at a young age, the alphabet mostly. Gradually, I learned to assemble words and form sentences, … somewhat. Imagine my joy upon discovering I could write my stories down! Consistent creative re-imaging was within my grasp.

I was toiling my life away, providing for my family and myself, until one day my wife asked me if I was ever going to do anything with all of my scribblings. I had never considered actually doing anything with them; outside of pleasuring myself and making her read them. Why don’t you publish some of them, she asked. D’ya think? I said. Yep, she said. So I did, and here we are. What do you think?

My stories are mostly about Florida, the way it probably never was, but the way I remember it. The characters are composites of people I have known or heard about, and the settings are familiar places in the Panhandle of Florida, the armpit of the South. Any truth is accidental and I disclaim any liability.

In my youth we traveled a lot, but we always came back to the Forgotten Coast. The tourism bureau doesn’t like to talk about it much, because of the heat, humidity and hurricanes that swirl up from the Gulf of Mexico and the mosquitoes, biting flies and gnats that swarm out of the swamps, across the sandy soil that supports scrub oak and pine forests and damned little else. If the truth were to be told, most of us prefer it that way, forgotten.

I like to listen to the small voices of everyday people because  there I find the common humanity that binds us together, no matter how strongly social loyalties pull us apart. This common humanity interests me because i have seen it appear in the most unexpected places and it always reminds me of how much alike we are.

I hope that you will find some enjoyment in my stories. I hope that someday soon I can quit my day job and write all the time. Wouldn’t it be a lovely world then? I think so.

-RDC