​      Are authors born or are they made? I believe I was born to be an author. I tried "making" my own book when I was a mere 6 years old. I drew pictures, wrote words, and even numbered the pages. I couldn't sew the pages together because I couldn't get the needle through the paper. I tried glue, but that turned out to be a mess. Got me spanked, too. But I didn't give up on writing. I just put publishing on hold for a few decades. I wrote because I felt I had to write. Drove my teachers nuts because I spent a lot of class time dreaming up stories. A few of them thought I was mentally challenged and wanted to put me in special ed. My dad hit the roof over that one. Psychologically, I was writing stories to escape from the reality of life in our home. Let me just say that my parents didn't get along and they got a divorce when I was 7.

     I got my first real byline in print at age 11 in the local newspaper in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. What a confidence builder that was! From that day forward, I was truly hooked on the written word. When I learned at age 16 as a newspaper stringer that I could make money with my writing, I signed on for the long haul. I tried writing a book that same year. I had this geometry teacher who was the worst teacher ever. He was so bad I had to teach myself geometry just to get a passing grade. The man had no control of the class. Everybody talked so incessantly that I couldn't hear the man talk. So I spent class time writing a book about Leif Ericson discovering America.

     At 18, I read most of "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller. I had no idea what he was writing about, but since his work had been banned in Boston, I wanted to be banned in Boston as well. Hey, I was 18 and it was 1965. If you weren't around back then, that probably means nothing to you. But for those of us that were here in the Sixties, I've said enough.

     A few years later I found a true catalyst of encouragement in the form of my first mother-in-law. She told me to give up writing because I had no talent for it. Really, lady? Then why did my essay on JFK's assassination get printed in every major newspaper in the country? When my first wife started reiterating her mother, I realized I was married to the wrong woman, and I looked for a true muse to inspire me and to give me the moral support every writer needs to be successful. I found her, too. As of this writing, Peg and I have been together for 38 years, 35 of them lawfully. She's my toughest critic and biggest fan. We have two children together: Torry and Tegan. I had four children with my first wife: Sigrid, Paul, Kristin, and Sonje. Until I met Peg, I had never finished a single book I had begun. Within 6 months of our becoming an item, I completed THE LEGEND OF EAGLE CLAW because she believed in me. There's more, but this is getting tiresome. I really don't like writing about myself, but Peg inspired me do it. Thanks for reading this. - Larry Names