Adventures in Writing: A Sentimental Journey

October 30, 2025 (Vol. 19 No. 42) - My latest book, In the Moment: The Journey of the Class of '70, is an attempt by me to straddle the worlds of fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, and reflection and projection. I’ve always wanted to write about the time and place where I was raised. And this book clearly shows my bias toward and love of the Delmarva Peninsula.

Some may find it hard to believe, but Maryland’s Eastern Shore was a very interesting and exciting place in the 1960s. It was a battleground over civil rights and school desegregation. It also saw many a politician glad-handing “the locals” from the Kennedy brothers to Spiro Agnew to George Wallace. It was also an area undergoing great social and environmental change, largely due to the influx of new residents lured by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Places such as St. Michaels and Easton were being transformed from sleepy towns that only a few seemed to treasure to the tawny tourist destinations they are today.

I chose to write about these and other issues from the perspective of my own cohort, school kids who graduated high school in June 1970. I also used as my setting the town where I attended my first eight years of school, St. Michaels. But here is where fact versus fiction straddling comes into play. I wrote historical fiction, meaning that most of the local, national and world events mentioned are true. Even some of the family names used in telling my story are ones common to the Eastern Shore. But the characters and their actions, for the most part, are fictional. Even those events based on my personal experience have been fictionalized to improve the plot line. An example of this is my description of the classroom reactions to the Kennedy assassination. But everything else is a product of my imagination. My goal was to tell a story about those times. I left it up to my classmates to tell their own stories. (One of them, my life-long friend Klaus Liebig, has, in fact, done so in a book entitled The Things I Remember.)

So, what’s next? I have no earthy idea. I’d like to get a sense of how well my latest book is faring before launching into another two-year project. While I have a good few ideas for the topic of my next book, none of them have yet ignited my passion for another literary adventure. I will also turn 73 within a couple of weeks. My health will also be a determining factor in my decision to continue my literary career.

This series of posts about my writing began innocently in May when I wrote about the publication of In the Moment. It made me ask the big question: Why do I write? Upon reflection, I think I know the answer: I love telling stories and I know how to do it. That's one of the reasons I became a journalist. If you look in the lower right corner of the picture above, you'll see my grandchildren. In a sense, these books are for them, as well. I’ll admit there may be some ego involved, but exposing one’s thoughts to others can prove to be a double-edged sword. The readers may love you or hate you. The writer must have enough confidence in himself or herself to gracefully handle either outcome. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.