The Evangeline Manuscript is my first published novel. It is the first-person account of a South Carolina woman’s travel back through time to the time of Jesus. Writing in the form of an extended letter to a friend from her days in college, she tells of how it would really be for a modern person to travel through the world of Ancient Rome. She tells how she came to go on the incredible journey with two Englishmen who had come forward in time from 1938 to 1972—how she met them, how they managed to make the jump forward, and why they decided to go to the distant past.
She tells of her journey from Morocco to Palestine by way of Rome, Germany Albania, and Greece, of her loves and fights along the way, and of the very different cultural practices she witnessed along the way.
The Evangeline Manuscript is being translated into Spanish, and a feature-length screenplay of it has been written by professional screenwriter Robin Brown of Venice Beach, California. .
The book was carried in national-chain bookstores as well as local independent stores in several states.
If you would like to have an autographed paperback first edition, please send just $15.95 for each copy you want, plus $2 each for postage and handling, to
Pike Publishing, P.O. Box 7, Zebulon, GA 30295-0007.
The Gift is a 154-page book of poems, songs, and toasts that I published in 2007. It contains 92 separate works written over a period of more than 40 years. It is subdivided into ten divisions or parts denominated as follows:
Preface The Black Fig The Passions of Youth Manhood Courtrooms Songs, Toasts & Verse A Bit O' Humor Family & Friends Farewell Appendix
Realizing the implications of creating such a work, I wrote a preface that is given below.
If you would like to acquire a copy of The Gift, please send a check or money order for $16.95 plus $2.00 postage & handling for each copy you want. Please add $10.00 if you wish a hardbound copy. Mail your request to
Pike Publishing P.O. Box 7 Zebulon, GA 30295-0007
If you would like it inscribed and signed, please tell me the name of the intended recipient together with any brief sentiments you might wish me to express. Thank you
FOREWORD
The term “self-expression” is perhaps a misleading one when applied to that form of literary effort called so loosely by the name of poetry. Indeed, the idea of there being only a self involved in the literary creative process is oxymoronic. One uses the language arts one has learned from his society, and the desire to communicate is one that of necessity involves readers. Striking a balance between expression and mere marketing is, however, critical. Consciously trying to adjust his work — some of which might be thirty years old and no longer reflective of who he is now — with the reader in mind, a writer will sometimes be faced with the dilemma of trying to discern the differences between a cowardice that guts his work and a foolhardiness that results in stumbles, falls, and personal pain. He must remember that, in its contention that discretion is the better part of valor, society repeatedly entrenches itself in positions which — to extend the metaphor — are always overrun.
Then, too, one must be cautious in the employment of the term poetry. That which seemed so right when first written might years later be deemed so wrong — or so childish — by him who wrote it. But to publish? Well, then his work falls into the public domain for all to judge, and there the same power applies: the eye of the beholder. To such a beholder the term poetry might seem vastly to overstate the work taken as a whole, and the terms verse or lines might seem more aptly to apply. Some of the works in this book are verse or line. Let the reader judge.
The social and political aspects of the works presented here might best be read with knowledge that, although finally edited in the fifty-eighth year of my life, all have been written and rewritten countless times over the years and have undergone numerous transformations. Where possible, the years of approximate first writing are given. Also one will find at the end of this small book a brief appendix that provides some study aids as well as personal and familial footnotes. One should not assume that this work is perfectly autobiographical. Years spent in travel, in reading, and in the practice of both criminal and domestic law have inevitably left their marks and contributed their visions. Indeed,
“Wealth, Happiness, Love & Romance
Are the Rewards.
Duty Is the Burden”
The burden and the duty in writing poetry is and always must be the presentation of truth. Its purposeful avoidance, though often well intended so as to spare feelings or avoid approbation, is the surest path to the vitiation of one’s efforts and of the debasement of that original spark that initiated each work.
A theme often repeated in these works and in those of many other writers the author admires is the acceptance of risk. It is hoped that the reader will bring to his consideration of these offerings a similar cast of mind and an open heart. What may seem the follies or the obsessions of youth might oft be better borne by those who themselves experienced such follies. Those who did not are mercifully few.
The Evangeline Manuscript is my first published novel. It is the first-person account of a South Carolina woman’s travel back through time to the time of Jesus. Writing in the form of an extended letter to a friend from her days in college, she tells of how it would really be for a modern person to travel through the world of Ancient Rome. She tells how she came to go on the incredible journey with two Englishmen who had come forward in time from 1938 to 1972—how she met them, how they managed to make the jump forward, and why they decided to go to the distant past.
The Gift is a 154-page book of poems, songs, and toasts that I published in 2007. It contains 92 separate works written over a period of more than 40 years. It is subdivided into ten divisions or parts denominated as follows: