Amazement

This novel is coming age story that opens in the 1950's and spans forty years. What happens to a child living in a conventional 1950's suburb who has a secret life that is anything but conventional? How does he create a future when life is a desperate maze. Not only has he been violently sexually traumatized as a child, but he is also attracted to men in an era when homosexuality is morally and legally condemned. Facing a life of contempt and violence, he becomes a spy, someone who watches people and even his own life from a secret distance.

I am a 73-year-old person who has creatively responded to being an outsider and in that process has learned to be an effective advocate for people who face the challenges of working with systems that may not be responsive to their hopes and needs. Fifty years ago I was an early member of FREE, the first Gay and Lesbian college organization in this country.

I have also worked as an RN in many healthcare systems focusing on the needs of people who I serve. These nursing experiences include psychiatric nursing, working with drug addicted mothers and infants in Harlem New York, volunteering for The Farm Workers Union in California, being on the board of a very early hospice in Maine, volunteering to do massage for people with AIDS, and collaborating to create a personal care service for people with mental illness living in the community.

I have also worked in a community college as an adjunct instructor teaching and empowering students who faced challenges to academic learning such as racism, poverty, violence and alternate learning styles. In that context I helped to create a Nonviolent Communication Task Force, a college Pow Wow, a Community Organizing Course, Student Leadership Initiatives and served as faculty advisor for The Queer Student Organization.