I’m a New York City native, so I’m used to squeezing into tight spaces. Jacksonville is wide open with a spectacular dearth of city-like attractions, but it seems I have little trouble writing my fiction stories here.

In NY I wrote in a different medium, that of songs, lots and lots of them, for over 40 years. Open mics were the rage in New York on days when there were few other paying customers in local bars. How they wanted us to drink and how we often avoided it. Judging by the number of closures of these venues, they were not too successful. Open mike performers are notoriously tight with their cash, me included.

My song writing improved when I joined The Jack Hardy Song Exchange, a critique group, for some ten years. We crammed into a tiny living room of a tiny West Village apartment, twenty performers, twenty songs, twenty guitars. They were weekly social gatherings where dinner was prepared and served and where, on full bellies, we sang our newly hatched compositions and listened to the judgement of our peers. These remain some of my fondest, treasured memories.

But with the graffiti on the walls, and at the age of 63, I found the opportunity for a change of venue to a different state, namely Florida: bigger apartment, far less costly, car instead of subway. I turned to writing short stories, something I’d done sporadically over the years, and found my truest pleasure. I joined a writer’s critique group, Bold City Writers, some 5 years ago, which helped me find my truest voice.

These are the basic pieces of me, breezing over my Queens, New York early years and my Brooklyn adult living, my series of hated jobs and resulting ‘just scraping by’ poverty. Introvert that I was and remain, New York almost forces you to be social. Friendships blossom from the strangest situations. The loss of closeness with these people, my ties to the city, keeps me wistful and hiding out in storyland.

I am happy to share my often fractured and amusing takes on unusually neurotic or fringe-dwelling characters. They are my friends for a while and, thereafter, mostly pleasing reminiscences. It is my pleasure to add a chuckle or chill to your otherwise reasonable lives. Maybe you’ll find a friend among them too.