"Wyatt Durrette has been a friend, a mentor and an inspiration to me for almost four decades. He is also one fine reader, whose suggestions have made me a better writer. The adoption fictionalized in A Southern Girl had its roots in our friendship with Wyatt, and his daughter is the remarkable woman he describes." --John GUEST BLOG by Wyatt Durrette I should have known in January 1975 when Shannon arrived from Korea in the blizzard-shrouded Philadelphia airport that nothing a

My writing life began with a short story I wrote in 1990 called The Dare on the Bridge. The bridge, in case you’re curious, is the Coleman Bridge that crosses the York River between Yorktown and Gloucester, Virginia. It is a non-fiction account of a day spent with my youngest son and four of his teammates on a youth soccer team called the Williamsburg Wizards. I’ll have more to say about that story in a future blog, but today I want to focus on the time at which it was writte

In August I blogged about my high school reunion in Yorktown, Virginia. I recalled old friends and the satisfaction I felt in being back with those with whom I shared the magic of youth. Speaking of youth, the lovely woman pictured is Lara Smoot, and unless there is something seriously wrong with your eyesight, you've figured out that she was not a member of York High School's class of 1963. Lara is a new friend who happens to have been made on that same reunion weekend, as s