After a thirty-year career in banking and three years of retirement, I decided to attempt to do the thing that I always thought I would do.  I began to write.  This was not a rash decision brought on by an unexpected epiphany.  This was the result of weeks of meditation.  From the time that I was a child and throughout my school years, I firmly believed that I would be a writer.  Like many others, I started countless drafts of stories throughout my life, all of which died a death of neglect and doubt.

Sue, my wife of forty-seven years, strongly supported my new-found determination to write a complete novel.  Throughout our years together she encouraged me to write.  From Youngstown, to Miami, to Chicago, and back to Youngstown, she never let me forget that it was my dream to write.

My desire to write came from my love of reading and the written word.  My sisters started taking me to the library when I was five years old.  I still remember proudly walking home with my first library book in my hand and then demanding that my sister, Margaret, read it to me.  I can honestly say that ever since that first day there was a book or, more often, books on the stand next to my bed.

Unfortunately, life got in the way of my desire to write.  I partied my way in and out of various colleges and then met the woman that I would spend the rest of my life with.  I suddenly felt compelled to become successful, to make money to help provide us with a good life.  Marriage and children will do that to all of us.

So, at the age of sixty-eight, I woke up one morning, grabbed a cup of coffee, set up my laptop at the kitchen table, and began to write.  It quickly became obvious that writing as a senior was much less strenuous than writing as a young man.  I wasn’t writing to make money.  I wasn’t taking time away from my career, my children, or my wife.  The only one that seemed to feel ignored was our fifty-pound terrier, Molly.  Sixteen months later, to my own amazement, I finished “Skating in the Moon Shadows”.

I sent copies off to some friends and family members and waited for their responses.  Not knowing what to do as I anticipated their responses, I began to write another story.  I have been writing almost every day since.  Now, I write with a sense of urgency.  I am seventy-three years of age and have many stories to finish before I am done.

Philllip Suarez

Molly