Sometimes, we authors take a detour from our usual fare. It’s a way to reconnect with our joy of writing. Little Green Dreams was one of those “detours” for me. However, it wasn’t a complete deviation from what I usually do. I love writing about quirky characters in small towns. This time, I wrote about people I know well—the folks in Central Arkansas, and a small town where my dad was raised.

In actual fact, this book was an homage to my dad. When the idea came to me for this book, many years before I wrote it, and before I became a published author, I talked to my dad about the mystery of the “Gurdon Light.” It’s kind of famous, actually. News organizations have covered it, and Unsolved Mysteries dedicated an episode to it as well. It’s a phenomenon many people have witnessed. And when my father agreed to take me for a long walk along the abandoned railroad tracks in Gurdon, Arkansas, where it occurs, I saw it for myself — a mysterious glowing light that seems to swing from side to side of the track. There’s a murder that occurred in the early 1900s of a railroad foreman, and the legend goes that he carries his railroad lantern along the tracks.

My father’s memories, and the help of a local university librarian who copied news articles from the trial of the man who murdered that foreman, were my starting point. I wrote the first three chapters, entered the story in some contests (and won a couple!), then I set it aside because I published and I had to write what would continue to sell.

This story was always in the back of my mind. Long after my father passed, I was ready to finish it. So, in 2023, I wrote and self-published the story. It’s not my usual thing, so it didn’t sell well, but I’m very proud of the story. Here’s what one reviewer had to say about it:

Strange lights hovering over railroad tracks, wonderfully crafted characters, a little humor, and southern charm highlight what is a perfectly paced, nicely written journey into the surreal and brings to mind a famous quote, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth…”

If you’ve never read it, I hope you’ll pick up a copy. It’s a ghost/alien/small-town/romantic comedy. Yeah, too many labels, I know. But it’s the book of my heart.

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A tabloid reporter seeks the truth behind an alien abduction claim made by a woman whose husband disappeared, although the truth may destroy his chances to woo her beautiful daughter…

Sometimes, Joe Franchetti hates his job at the National Informer, especially when he’s assigned to cover stories involving aliens from another world. When he is sent to investigate the story of a woman in rural Arkansas who claims aliens abducted her husband, he vows to debunk her story, no matter how much the truth might hurt her attractive daughter.

Sandra Billingsley has a problem. Her stepfather is missing, and her mother is the prime suspect in his disappearance. In addition to protecting her eccentric mother from a possible murder investigation, now she must contend with a national tabloid reporter set on exposing her mother as a murderess or a madwoman.

While the investigation turns up more suspects and the local townspeople scheme to profit from the “alien invasion,” Joe and Sandra work together to unravel the mystery, knowing their attraction is doomed to end in pain when the truth is revealed.

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