“CAN YOU MAKE A LIVING AS A SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR?”

I’ve been writing most of my life. In junior high, some friends and I put together a small local newspaper, which we typed and mimeographed. We actually sold a few ads. I interviewed the officer in charge of the local firehouse, as well as a renowned local neighborhood athlete. This led to a position as sports writer for my junior high school newspaper, mostly for the basketball team, where I got to cover one of my good friends, and hang out with the jocks.

I went so far as to earn an MA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, positive I would become a writer, both fiction and non-fiction. One of my teachers, the late and exquisite writer, Kay Boyle, invited me to a lecture by the legendary SF trial lawyer, Charles Garry. I was immediately hooked, applied to law school, and spent forty years as a criminal defense lawyer, branching out into deportation defense. I barely wrote any fiction during those years, aside from a few rare false starts, and kept an on-and-off journal.

The writing itch never ceased, and when I retired, my wife and I spent almost four years living in Bangkok, Thailand, where I really became a writer. No one was reading me, as I’d published nothing, but anyone who sits down every day and writes is a writer. I joined a local English language writing group, Keybangers Bangkok, and they provided…