Songwriting, playwriting, screenwriting, journal writing, writing of poetry, writing of prose, tagging, drawing, uppercase, lowercase. I’ve tried them. Slave to all in principle, master of none in purpose. Until, perhaps… Fashioned by many hands, I carry a writer’s gene.
FROM I AM RIDING – © – 2009
In his kindest way, as I was a high-schooler fancying a career in professional baseball, my father, who had an innate comprehension of the game and in later years could often be seen with the Baseball Encyclopedia tucked under his arm (he who had indeed lingered in major league dugouts enough to witness, among other things, the bitter phenomenon that left many ballplayers broke and education-less at the end of their careers – bumpkins swindled by agents, lawyers, wives along the way), tendered these exact words of vigilant concern to me: “You have to understand how awfully hard they hit the ball up there.” I didn’t know how solemnly he meant his cautionary admonition at the time, but now present existed a disconnect. I was indeed not one of the ‘they’, one of these guys I was chumming around with on this evening who hit the ball as hard as my father suggested. I was not going to be a professional ballplayer, never mind my ridiculously advanced age of thirty-eight at the time, and I am overtaken by a sour feeling thwarting any innate suspicion or residual desire that I could still attain this goal. Until now, this dream had lived in me at a cellular level, an internal feeling never without, through all my transitions, through my ages. The Elysian Fields beckoned in the exact same way that they did when I was a young boy. A young boy unafraid to give up my body, throw myself hardscrabble at the sheen of oil and rock on the playground surface of Wightman School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and on the asphalt and concrete surfaces in front of and nearby our various homes in California, Indiana and Arizona, and on innumerable dirt and grass baseball fields since.
Arianna wrote her first letter to Santa Claus at the age of four. She has not stopped writing since. She graduated from UC Berkeley with B.A. in English and currently lives and writes in Los Angeles.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles and spent many happy childhood years far removed from the stereotypical Hollywood scene that has become synonymous with the city to people who have never actually set foot within its limits. I went up the California coast about a hundred miles for college at UCSB where I earned my degree in Business and Accounting, while also studying a great deal of philosophy. I have worked both full and part time for a West Los Angeles accounting firm for the past five years and spend my off time writing and drawing. I particularly like writing humor and poetry and am currently working on my first novel, a science fiction adventure story. As far as drawing is concerned, I suppose one could classify my style as surrealist in a sense although I also immensely enjoy drawing cartoons. I am honored to be part of the Wimpole Writers.
Shirley Sacks is an artist and writer. Born in South Africa where she obtained a Fine Arts degree from The University of the Witwatersrand, she has lived in London and now lives in Los Angeles. She is a creative package; she writes, paints, photographs, knits, makes jewelery, decorates ceilings and floors. She writes about her life in rhyming couplets, writes short stories, novels, screen plays, worked as an advertising copywriter, had a gossip and food and wine column in South Africa. Her art work hangs in homes in South Africa, London and America and can be seen at: 
J.P. Lanham writes essays on human beings being human, theater based on a similar theme and humor aimed at keeping it all in balance. His blog can be found at 
