Meet Max. A real gold man - you could say it was in his blood. He believed times were about to change but who cared? He did. Worried about inflation and growing debt, he set himself up as a physical gold bullion dealer. There were times the phone didn't ring. He didn't give up, and then they came.... Who bought gold? Why did they buy gold? What if...? This is his story. It was never dull, even exciting and at times downright dangerous.

In my writings, you will observe the spirit and the soul in a tussle, Freckles, Stilettos and None is a book of short stories that has been created from memories, images and imagination of how Love and Relationships breed angst. Stories like Miya Kraapik and The Man with the Uniform is about being simple, honest and rotten in our daily routines. And yet fate always has an ace up its sleeve, so when you read The Sunset Of Our Lives and Dancing Faces You Towards Heaven and Dotcom, the magic of life being colossal and intriguing is touched upon and you will challenge yourself to do more. Sometimes when we give ourselves a chance to touch us, life becomes poetry like All In Verse and Krazzie Gothic Angel. I believe in Life, Love and Angst, how else would we grow?

I began writing song lyric, then came poetry, and short stories some 40- years-ago when I was 10-years-old. During the sixties in high school, I had the privilege of meeting The Poet Laureate of the United States, Mr. Robert Frost. He spoke with me discussing my poetry and my ideas. He told me to keep writing and reading, and as I continued I would learn so much more and eventually become a published poet.

I have continued writing lyrics, poetry, and short stories. I am now 64-years old and I am published. I have always told other poets and writers to keep on writing, and learning about the many different styles of the written arts.

The way I see writing poetry is a likeness to a photograph of a moment, a dream, a place, and a thing, a memory good or not so good. Life comes at us in many different ways, sometimes in many different ways at once. It�s the situations that arise, the masks some people wear, the way they talk and rub shoulders with everybody. These things make up the poetry I write. When you sit down and look at life you�ll find it�s much bigger than just us. This is poetry, lyric writing, short stories from the imagination, journalism, and actually all the arts, they are great love affairs with life.

I have found all things good in the written arts, even when I�m turned down by an editor. It�s all learning and enjoying what you do. So choose a photograph of a moment, a dream, or a situation, and then write about it. Create a picture with words of description. I live a simple life as a Disabled Veteran of the U.S.M.C., and the Vietnam War. However, I am simply who I am, and I don�t try to say I�m someone else. I am a human being who loves the arts. My message to you all whom read this is KEEP ON WRITING; KEEP ON KEEPING ON.

I began writing song lyric, then came poetry, and short stories some 40- years-ago when I was 10-years-old. During the sixties in high school, I had the privilege of meeting The Poet Laureate of the United States, Mr. Robert Frost. He spoke with me discussing my poetry and my ideas. He told me to keep writing and reading, and as I continued I would learn so much more and eventually become a published poet.

I have continued writing lyrics, poetry, and short stories. I am now 64-years old and I am published. I have always told other poets and writers to keep on writing, and learning about the many different styles of the written arts.

The way I see writing poetry is a likeness to a photograph of a moment, a dream, a place, and a thing, a memory good or not so good. Life comes at us in many different ways, sometimes in many different ways at once. It�s the situations that arise, the masks some people wear, the way they talk and rub shoulders with everybody. These things make up the poetry I write. When you sit down and look at life you�ll find it�s much bigger than just us. This is poetry, lyric writing, short stories from the imagination, journalism, and actually all the arts, they are great love affairs with life.

I have found all things good in the written arts, even when I�m turned down by an editor. It�s all learning and enjoying what you do. So choose a photograph of a moment, a dream, or a situation, and then write about it. Create a picture with words of description. I live a simple life as a Disabled Veteran of the U.S.M.C., and the Vietnam War. However, I am simply who I am, and I don�t try to say I�m someone else. I am a human being who loves the arts. My message to you all whom read this is KEEP ON WRITING; KEEP ON KEEPING ON.

Bold as Brass is a collection of twenty-four stories set in Waterbury, Connecticut, once Brass Capital of the World. All the stories are works of fiction. They are the author�s look into long-ago lives, both of her Irish Catholic family and of imagined characters who might have joined them in their daily goings on, in a period of time that stretches from the thirties through the fifties. Whether the characters are swimming at Scovill�s Dam on a hot summer day and wondering what is beneath that water or telling stories around the kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, making a pilgrimage to Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada to request a baby or bearing gifts to a birthday celebration with mixed results, their stories are presented in a way that shows how insightful commonplace occurrences can prove to be. Bold as Brass is the author�s second book, deliciously anecdotal, and a true companion to her first book, The View from Cracker Hill, a memoir of 1950s Waterbury. These are stories of working-class people, of whom Betty notes in �Saturday Night Swells,� the idea that �ordinary people can have extraordinary moments is a wonderful discovery.� The author says, �I echo Betty�s sentiment, and I am delighted to share these stories.�

Bold as Brass is a collection of twenty-four stories set in Waterbury, Connecticut, once Brass Capital of the World. All the stories are works of fiction. They are the author�s look into long-ago lives, both of her Irish Catholic family and of imagined characters who might have joined them in their daily goings on, in a period of time that stretches from the thirties through the fifties. Whether the characters are swimming at Scovill�s Dam on a hot summer day and wondering what is beneath that water or telling stories around the kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, making a pilgrimage to Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada to request a baby or bearing gifts to a birthday celebration with mixed results, their stories are presented in a way that shows how insightful commonplace occurrences can prove to be. Bold as Brass is the author�s second book, deliciously anecdotal, and a true companion to her first book, The View from Cracker Hill, a memoir of 1950s Waterbury. These are stories of working-class people, of whom Betty notes in �Saturday Night Swells,� the idea that �ordinary people can have extraordinary moments is a wonderful discovery.� The author says, �I echo Betty�s sentiment, and I am delighted to share these stories.�

Bold as Brass is a collection of twenty-four stories set in Waterbury, Connecticut, once Brass Capital of the World. All the stories are works of fiction. They are the author�s look into long-ago lives, both of her Irish Catholic family and of imagined characters who might have joined them in their daily goings on, in a period of time that stretches from the thirties through the fifties. Whether the characters are swimming at Scovill�s Dam on a hot summer day and wondering what is beneath that water or telling stories around the kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, making a pilgrimage to Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada to request a baby or bearing gifts to a birthday celebration with mixed results, their stories are presented in a way that shows how insightful commonplace occurrences can prove to be. Bold as Brass is the author�s second book, deliciously anecdotal, and a true companion to her first book, The View from Cracker Hill, a memoir of 1950s Waterbury. These are stories of working-class people, of whom Betty notes in �Saturday Night Swells,� the idea that �ordinary people can have extraordinary moments is a wonderful discovery.� The author says, �I echo Betty�s sentiment, and I am delighted to share these stories.�

The book is comprised of a story �Clueless Wanderer� and a collection of shorter stories, that describe adventures of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, their dreams and aspirations, success and failures while trying to adjust to the new language and culture. The characters in those stories are neither positive, nor negative � just different people surviving the best they can. Those characters do not represent a certain ethnicity, neither they reside in a certain city. Their images are strange and familiar, helpless and arrogant, funny and pitiful, happy and miserable, frustrated with learning English and proud of their Americanized grandchildren, with whom they cannot communicate. Please don�t judge them too hard.

The book is comprised of a story �Clueless Wanderer� and a collection of shorter stories, that describe adventures of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, their dreams and aspirations, success and failures while trying to adjust to the new language and culture. The characters in those stories are neither positive, nor negative � just different people surviving the best they can. Those characters do not represent a certain ethnicity, neither they reside in a certain city. Their images are strange and familiar, helpless and arrogant, funny and pitiful, happy and miserable, frustrated with learning English and proud of their Americanized grandchildren, with whom they cannot communicate. Please don�t judge them too hard.

The path From Meaning to Desire draws its characters through nine stories, eight set in 1960, along the Red River, from Shreveport to Natchitoches in western Louisiana, to the last in South Vietnam in 1967. The book opens on Lillian Stallings. Shy, missing her deceased father, and at 38 adjusting to premature grandparenthood, she finds her life dismayingly similar to her mother's -- unfulfilled, unengaged, and short on meaning. When she and her husband are traveling to their first visit to see their grandchild, Lillian is traumatized by Lou, the book's other protagonist, who owns a caf� and motel near Shreveport. Following the trauma, the visit to the daughter's home goes even worse than feared: Lillian's distress overflows and she flees, fearing that her husband Gerald and their daughter will have her committed to a mental institution. Louis Fontinot, carnival prize fighter, speakeasy bouncer, World War I veteran, and sometimes wrestler of alligators, is also a closet devourer of high quality fiction, a self-identified "counterfeit" Cajun, and the benevolent patriarch of an extended family of siblings, their families, and the children of his cook and her partner. Especially close are his sister, Marie Lynn -- a librarian who shares Lou's love of literature -- and her son, Marlow, in whom Lou finds a kind of alter ego. Plot and characters emerge from the risks, fears, passions, and complexities of local culture, segregation, civil rights, the Klan, family dynamics, and the emerging love story of Lou and Lillian. The ninth story is a counter spin on the first eight.

The path From Meaning to Desire draws its characters through nine stories, eight set in 1960, along the Red River, from Shreveport to Natchitoches in western Louisiana, to the last in South Vietnam in 1967. The book opens on Lillian Stallings. Shy, missing her deceased father, and at 38 adjusting to premature grandparenthood, she finds her life dismayingly similar to her mother's -- unfulfilled, unengaged, and short on meaning. When she and her husband are traveling to their first visit to see their grandchild, Lillian is traumatized by Lou, the book's other protagonist, who owns a caf� and motel near Shreveport. Following the trauma, the visit to the daughter's home goes even worse than feared: Lillian's distress overflows and she flees, fearing that her husband Gerald and their daughter will have her committed to a mental institution. Louis Fontinot, carnival prize fighter, speakeasy bouncer, World War I veteran, and sometimes wrestler of alligators, is also a closet devourer of high quality fiction, a self-identified "counterfeit" Cajun, and the benevolent patriarch of an extended family of siblings, their families, and the children of his cook and her partner. Especially close are his sister, Marie Lynn -- a librarian who shares Lou's love of literature -- and her son, Marlow, in whom Lou finds a kind of alter ego. Plot and characters emerge from the risks, fears, passions, and complexities of local culture, segregation, civil rights, the Klan, family dynamics, and the emerging love story of Lou and Lillian. The ninth story is a counter spin on the first eight.

TALES FROM A CLOSET IS A COLLECTION OF HORROR STORIES THAT HAVE A DANGEROUS PERSONA ABOUT IT AND ITS CHARACTERS ALL SEEM TO TAKE ON DIFFERENT FORMS OF LIFE. THE BOOK ITSELF IS TWISTED AND THE PLOT LINES ARE VERY HARSH AND DIFFICULT. There are also 2 added stories that are about the authors family and they are THE PATROIT AND THE THOMAS KENNDY STORY . THE PATROIT IS A STORY ABOUT A WAR HERO WHICH WAS BASED ON THE AUTHORS BROTHER ALAN THOMAS AND THE THOMAS KENNDY STORY IS A STORY ABOUT AUTHORS GRANDDAD.

TALES FROM A CLOSET IS A COLLECTION OF HORROR STORIES THAT HAVE A DANGEROUS PERSONA ABOUT IT AND ITS CHARACTERS ALL SEEM TO TAKE ON DIFFERENT FORMS OF LIFE. THE BOOK ITSELF IS TWISTED AND THE PLOT LINES ARE VERY HARSH AND DIFFICULT. There are also 2 added stories that are about the authors family and they are THE PATROIT AND THE THOMAS KENNDY STORY . THE PATROIT IS A STORY ABOUT A WAR HERO WHICH WAS BASED ON THE AUTHORS BROTHER ALAN THOMAS AND THE THOMAS KENNDY STORY IS A STORY ABOUT AUTHORS GRANDDAD.

The path From Meaning to Desire draws its characters through nine stories, eight set in 1960, along the Red River, from Shreveport to Natchitoches in western Louisiana, to the last in South Vietnam in 1967. The book opens on Lillian Stallings. Shy, missing her deceased father, and at 38 adjusting to premature grandparenthood, she finds her life dismayingly similar to her mother's -- unfulfilled, unengaged, and short on meaning. When she and her husband are traveling to their first visit to see their grandchild, Lillian is traumatized by Lou, the book's other protagonist, who owns a caf� and motel near Shreveport. Following the trauma, the visit to the daughter's home goes even worse than feared: Lillian's distress overflows and she flees, fearing that her husband Gerald and their daughter will have her committed to a mental institution. Louis Fontinot, carnival prize fighter, speakeasy bouncer, World War I veteran, and sometimes wrestler of alligators, is also a closet devourer of high quality fiction, a self-identified "counterfeit" Cajun, and the benevolent patriarch of an extended family of siblings, their families, and the children of his cook and her partner. Especially close are his sister, Marie Lynn -- a librarian who shares Lou's love of literature -- and her son, Marlow, in whom Lou finds a kind of alter ego. Plot and characters emerge from the risks, fears, passions, and complexities of local culture, segregation, civil rights, the Klan, family dynamics, and the emerging love story of Lou and Lillian. The ninth story is a counter spin on the first eight.

�ya gotta LOVE it!�, is madison brown�s collection of short stories that will touch your heart. Whether it�s the story about the chaos of a 4th of July beach day� or a life changing event about a man she met in a parking lot, she has a unique style of bringing you into a story that is so relatable. Each story is a life lesson, a humorous laugh out loud event, or simply how we defi ne ourselves through our faith, beliefs and gratitude.