Random conversation with a fellow tourist on a package tour to the Baltics last year:
Tourist: “Have you ever been to Russia?”
Me: “No, but I’ve seen it.’
Tourist; “What?”
Me: “Through a periscope.”
Back in the day, when I was a serving submarine officer, I used to wonder if we would ever make a port call to the places I saw through the periscope. Maybe have a beer and a conversation. Nope, I would decide, never gonna happen,
Boy was I wrong.
One of most surprising and happy things I’ve found on this author journey is re-establishing contact with shipmates and friends, and making new acquaintances. Last month I got an email from a former Soviet naval commander who had read my memoir, and since exchanged several emails. Quite fascinating to hear what the “other side” was experiencing and feeling while we hunted each other. Makes one wonder about the current hostilities—how long until we’re chatting with former adversaries, over a beer, or chai?
The picture is from the first session of a class I am teaching at George Mason University. Several more to go in this semester, then I am booked with Loudoun County Libraries to give a series of lectures this summer. I will post all events on my website.
I will be interviewed on How to Hotwire an Airplane on Warbirds Radio on 11 May, will post the link when it hits.
Two great developments:
Submerged was listed as a Finalist for the 2025 Self-Published Review of Books Awards!. Didn’t win, but out of a large field so it felt good to place.
And I have finished the first draft of my new novel which I expect to publish this year! Here is a blurb for it, stay tuned!:
Megga Maps Handicap: a novel racing, coming of age, and other calamities
Stick and Bear just want to have some fun and maybe make a little money. But when their racing app goes viral and turns otherwise law-abiding Americans into crazed racing zealots, the two teenagers find themselves over their heads and in cahoots with a shadowy financial figure hosting the racing servers on a former WW2 gun platform in international waters. Soon, government agents are on their heels as they navigate a Byzantine world of money laundering, prediction markets, cryptocurrencies, derivatives, and collateralized debt obligations. When a big race threatens to tank the world economy, the two friends are faced with a moral choice that threatens their friendship and forces them to grow up in a hurry. An all-too-realistic scenario ripped from the headlines, Megga Maps Handicap is a story about racing, coming of age, and how one’s choices in life define a person.
Until next month, Peace.