Hello and welcome to Carriage Return, my bit of the World Wide Web.
Writer, editor, professor, and publisher, my career has taken me from encrypting classified messages for the military and covering school board meetings for a small county paper to moving documentation from traditional printing outfits to print-on-demand operations and publishing literary journals. Use this site to learn more about my credentials and view some of my writing samples.
Corporate Writer & Editor
I've been a professional writer since 1986, when I joined the United States Navy and worked as a cryptologist for four years. After earning an undergraduate degree in Print Journalism with a minor in English, I took a position as a general assignment reporter for a small paper in rural Tennessee. Then, the Internet and its World Wide Web arrived. In 1994, I combined my technology training from the military with my reporting skills and spent the next 30-odd years writing in the corporate workforce in such positions as technical writer, project manager, marketing coordinator, marketing director, and Webmaster.
Creative Writer & Editor
A Kentucky native and longtime Nashvillian, I've published my journalism, poetry, and prose in such publications as The Tennessean, The Hendersonville Star, The News Examiner, The Trunk, The Record, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, The Tennessee Writer, Popmatters.com, and the British Web journal Chapter&Verse, but I am perhaps best known as a passionate promoter of the arts throughout middle Tennessee. After studying creative writing in London, England and earning a MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, I founded The Writer's Loft, a creative writing program at Middle Tennessee State University, as well as created, edited, and published the program's literary journal, the Trunk. For the program's first four years, I promoted the written word by establishing public readings, panel discussions, and workshops throughout middle Tennessee. I founded and published 2nd & Church, a literary journal by, for, and about writers and readers throughout Tennessee.