The Quippy Quill

Ox In The Culvert by Gerald Brence - Part 1

Texas Ranger Ray Andrews was tired of hearing about the California gold rush. His best friend and fellow Ranger, Tom Jenkins, constantly badgered him about it. Tom wanted to quit the Rangers and head west, but Ray wasn't interested.
 
Both their lives changed forever the day they entered a shooting contest in Austin. Samuel Colt had just developed the new Colt Navy revolver. He sponsored a competition to promote his product. Ray won the contest. Tom finished fourth. The top ten Ranger shooters received one of the new revolvers. They also received a mission to guard a payroll wagon into the Indian country of deep Southwest Texas. Ray and Tom didn't know about the payroll mission when they entered the contest.
 
A ruthless outlaw named Sores Aguilar was watching. Dressed as a friendly observer, Sores obtained all the information about the payroll wagon. He was already devising a master plan to rob it.
 
Ox in the Culvert is a historical fiction novel about the true Wild West. The story travels from Central Texas through the great Southwest and into California. It continues on to Hong Kong and then back to San Francisco. Take an adventure into the early 1850s. The great western expansion of America was accomplished by both the good and the bad. It was a time that hasn't received its proper respect.

The Wounded Breed By James S. Kelly

TRUE TO HIS WORD, Joseph Horn Cloud presented White Bird to the Pine Ridge Indian Council for a Trial on Behalf of the four soldiers. Their verdict, which Joseph and his brother feared, was a lifetime ban from the Sioux Nation and all its followers. It was to commence in ten days, White Lance and his brother had expected a similar fate for their younger brother, but not one of that length.
 
Their parting was one of sadness. They loved their white brother and would miss him forever. but they knew in their heart that this was just verdict and not as great as the court in Santa Barbara had pronounced.
 
White Bird vowed to his brother that he would devote the remainder of his life to being a good man and one they could be proud of. He spent the next week in meditation at his parents' grave and at the monument at Wounded Knee. He then left the area and headed south toward Sidney. He found Rosita Riley in a dirty saloon on the outskirts of the town and asked her to forgive him. He learned that he had a son who was four years old.
 
He told her what he'd done and what the verdict laid down by the Pine Ridge Council was. He told her he was still hunted by the authorities, but if she and the child were willing, he would marry her and take then with him. "Jacob, we've had a miserable existence the last three years, but I don't know if I can trust you. You left me once; why wouldn't you do it you?"
 
"I understand your reluctance, but I'm a difference man today and I promised my brothers that I would be a good man. My name is not Jacob Light; it's Raymond O' Caliegh. I researched records of the many wagon trains that were lost and found out who my real parents were."

Streetcar Sandwiches by Curt Orloff

Streetcar Sandwiches is a screenplay showing the efforts the owner of a sandwich shop in Uptown New Orleans undertakes to keep her business running. Not only does she have to deal with a menagerie of all types of employees, she has to comply with onerous and often conflicting regulations from several government bureaus. How she handles what turns into an ordeal threatens to change her naturally optimistic and pleasant personality. It leads directly to an outcome that could only have occurred in the Big Easy.
 
 

The G-Connection by Dr. Joan Vernikos - Interview by Kathryn Wilking

It's a podcast interview conducted by host Kathryn Wilking on her podcast channel, 'Feng Shui Your Day,' available on Spotify

Voices from the Ledge by J.T. Fisher

Have you ever felt so desperate or so depressed that you felt like giving up? Be honest, now, did you ever say to yourself, “I’m probably worth more dead than alive?” Julie suffered from Empty Nest Syndrome. She had been forced into early retirement while her husband had hit the pinnacle of his career. She was lost. What she didn’t know was that her depression was normal. But Julie had a plan. She was going to end her misery, however, in the execution of it, a remarkable thing happened.  She meets four women who were at the same hotel on a girl’s get-away weekend.  They have a very strange impact on her. Find out what happens when you're about to give up on life, but that gets interrupted by strangers who really have lived life~!

The Most Beautiful City by Maestro Blair

During the (2015-2016) school year, Walter had the unique and fortunate opportunity to teach in a first grade, dual language program at Hunt Club Elementary School. After reading one of his first grade anchor-text entitled, Señorita Runfio from the new Ready-Gen series, he felt inspired to write his own children's book. Walter has always felt the passion to write whenever he is motivated and encouraged to tell a story in unusual and "extreme circumstances". During his entire teaching career, he has used the strategy of Daily Interactive Journal Writing as an effective learning tool to meet the social and emotional needs of all the learners that he has taught. In times of leisure and pleasure, he enjoys travelling with his wife, Marg on getaways, watching Chicago Cubs and Bears sport teams, conducting seminars, workshops, attending Church and Bible studies, and last but not least, sharing The Good News of the Gospel as an interactive minister of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. He is a huge believer and doer of an old proverb that says," Good, better, best will never let you rest, until the good gets better and the better gets best. Practice makes us all better!"