About the Author

Born in Chicago, Illinois. No siblings. Raised on the southeast side near Lake Michigan and Jackson Park. Attended multiethnic, multicultural Hyde Park High School. Early memories include summers in the small lakeside town of Glenn, Michigan; swimming alone; growing apart from the family; Herbie Mann at the Stage Lounge, The Jazz Messengers at the Crown Propeller on Sixty-Third, Miles Davis at the Southerland Hotel, John Coltrane at McKee's on Cottage Grove, Billie Holiday at the Blue Note in 'The Loop' . . . Attended the University of Illinois-Urbana and the University of Chicago. Began writing poems. Married Judith. Founded CHOICE Magazine with Aaron Siskind and John Logan. Attended Roosevelt University (completed Bachelor of Arts degree twenty-five years later). Son, Jason, born. Worked many years as a bartender and restaurant manager. Divorced. Moved to California. San Francisco - eighteen years. Published Stiletto and By Dawn's Early Light at 120 Miles Per Hour. Father dies. Moved to San Diego to care for mother. Married Ellen. Published It's Mother's Day. Moved to Barcelona, Spain. Published Barcelona Diary. Returned to US. Widowed. Scattered mother's ashes in 2002. Returned to Barcelona where in 2006/07 The Man With His Back To The Room Poems 2000-2005  and Intimacies Prose Poems & Stoies were designed and published. 2007/08 saw the publication of three 'chapbooks:' After Goya: Disasters of War / Escapades / Improvisations. 2008 - No longer living in Barcelona having returned to San Diego to teach and write.