WICKED RUN PRESS: Things That Scare People,

The lovely depiction of the Heroin Addict above adorned the first edition of my novel Stray. I felt he captured the rawness of the novel, but unfortunately, it scared the dog poop out of pet-loving folks and certainly didn't capture the 'tenderness' of the novel. Perhaps not realizing he is a heroin addict fixing up, the assumption was it was a horror novel and it ended up in the 'Occult Horror' section.

Then a succession of dogs hit the cover, including this bewildered Golden Retriever below who, in the novel, was adopted by a family from the Argos animal shelter, but then runs away looking for his original owner. In one of my favorite scenes, both of his human-owners meet, both standing over the dogs grave, but unaware that they are grieving for their same beloved pet.

This cover below was the original sketch for the publishers version of Stray. Bad news is, this publisher went out of business, but not before holding my novel hostage for 7 years, the whole time which Stray was stuck on their 'coming soon' list. Beware of geeks bearing contracts.

Lastly, here is a picture that scares the heck out of me. I signed up for the Ann Arbor Marathon on the first day of registration, without looking at the details because I was so excited to run an inaugural marathon in my favorite town. On closer inspection, I realize it is perhaps the hilliest marathon I have ever seen. In fact, I looked at various marathon maps, and have not found any marathon routes that gain 525 feet.