|
HOME
NOVEL
SHORT STORIES
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
BOOK REVIEWS
MUSIC
CONTACT |
I started out to be an academician, got a PhD in American literature
and studies, taught at Northeastern, University of Maryland, and
Temple University. For three years, I was in the University of
Maryland armed forces education program (Korea, Thailand, Taiwan,
Japan, and Bermuda). One of my short stories about Vietnam is based
partly upon teaching writing to Marines on Okinawa.
My
dissertation was “The American Eye,” about the development of
American national character in a history of the early republic by
Henry Adams. “Eye”
for me was a pun on the personal pronoun “I,” because point-of-view
in Adams’ History was equivalent to a person’s identity, how people
view the world and themselves.
My
interest in American character drew me to the lives of immigrants,
who like my parents try to realize the American Dream, each in his
own way. Even the criminals in my novel The Medallion have dreams of
success and self-realization in common with the law-abiding and the
law-enforcing. America is a land of opportunity, as they say, even
for mayhem.
I left
college teaching to write technical documents for BBN
Communications, the Federal Reserve and lastly Fidelity Investments,
where I earned my broker’s license and did articles and interviews
for its financial services magazines (Suze Orman and Larry Kudlow
were a few of my interviews).
The job at
Fidelity placed me next to the South Station rail terminal, where
over the years I talked with taxi drivers, most of whom are
immigrants.
|
