My writing evolves from introspection, being a geoscientist, and a lifetime adventuring (making pilgrimages, traveling abroad, piloting small planes, hiking, kayaking, scuba diving, snowshoeing, x-country skiing and in 2013, competing in a half-triathlon).

 

Ideas gleaned from navel gazing morph into nonfiction essays, memoir, fiction novels and short stories. Once  in awhile, poetry shows up. 

Reading, being in nature, journaling, and playing flute kept me grounded in my youth.

Writing and becoming a better story teller keeps me tethered to the here and now of my/our struggles and triumphs on this beautiful planet.

 

I'm an indie scholar conducting research to honor America's Middle Passage Africans, at the historic slave trade ports where they first stepped on these shores (click solo pilgrimage for more info).

 

For the latest click  recent writing cred/events , books/cds, and works-in-progress.

Click 'More' button for Short Essays/Stories4You published on this website. 

 

I'm a VONA/Voices alum after attending Faith Adiele's phenomenal Travel Writing Workshop (2017). In 2016, I enjoyed a writers residency at the exceptional Rhode Island Writers Colony (with New York Times best-selling author and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, 2020-21, Jason Reynolds as Artistic Director and author/performance artist Candice Iloh).

 

In 2007, I braved a solo writer's residency at Wildacres Retreat, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Little Switzerland, North Carolina. I stayed a week in a cabin whose forested land was once home to indigenous Ani’yunwi’ya (Cherokee), Monaca, Saponi, and Tutelo, before European colonists arrived. The land was also, in the 19th century, "owned" by a founding member of the KKK before it was sold to abolitionists. 

 

I've presented, read, or been a panel author at Kachemak Bay Writer's Conference, Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, Seattle Rainbow Bookfest, VONA Voices, and Rhode Island Writers Colony.

 

I'm a member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History; and the African American Intellectual History Society.

 

In addition to ongoing writing projects, I pay the bills as owner of a technical and grant writing firm.

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THE GEOLOGIST/GEOSCIENTIST YEARS...i was CEO of my international consultant firm, analyzing satellite and airborne multispectral imagery for earth resources and using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. Contract clients included GIS software giant ESRI, the United Nations FAO, Alaska DNR, and mid-size environmental  and energy firms.

 

For 20+ years I honed skills as a researcher, technical writer, speaker, instructor and seminar developer in project/department manager positions with U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observations Systems (EROS) Data Centers; with state and federal private contractors; with military installations; and with a multi-state aerial photogrammetric firm. As a result of these incredible opportunities, I'm published in geoscience journals and conference proceedings. 

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