I retired in 2013 after 30 years as the local columnist for the News & Advance, a mid-sized daily newspaper in Lynchburg, VA, then moved to Lake George, NY. There, my wife and I are taking care of my 90-year-old mother, and I'm reinventing myself as a freelance writer and author. My first novel, "The Kudzu Kid," came out last October, centered on a weekly newspaper in a fictional Virginia county. My latest project is "Snowflakes in a Blizzard," a free writers' service designed to lift authors out of the blizzard of books currently on the marketplace and give them some one-on-time with visitors to the blog. Born in North Carolina, I grew up ion Syracuse, NY and graduated from Belmont Abbey College. I previously published two non-fiction books -- "Even Here," and "A City Unto Itself," and I'm currently working on "Inspiration Street," a non-fiction books about two city blocks in Lynchburg that are incredibly rich in African American history.