 | My Published Work
On Smashwords.com
A Single Step (YA novel) One high school freshman's experiences with bullying, kung fu, and religious intolerance in the American deep south of the late 20th century. The Spark: The Story of a Christmas Soon to Come A skinny Santa Claus, nature spirits, collapsing civilization, global warming, a tent city of foreclosure victims, a nativity scene among the homeless--this is a Christmas story for the rest of us! Madam President (short story) A retelling of the Faust story for modern times with Biblical overtones. On the Residential Aliens website Supernal (short story) A ghost story for computer geeks, based on a tale I heard when I worked at a hospital. My short story, Davis and the Goth is part of the Residential Aliens printed anthology, While the Morning Stars Sing available at CreateSpace. |
I'm Ray Foy
I've always loved a good story, and there's a few of my own I want to tell.
My childhood years were the 1960's, when television was coming into its prime and Westerns were the popular fare. I watched most all of them: Wanted Dead or Alive, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Branded, and The Virginian. They were all formula-driven glorifications of the American frontier myth featuring strong male leads whose characters never developed, and who solved all problems with violence (great fun for preteens).
But even more than these simple series, I loved stories of fantasy or science fiction. I read every book by Robert Heinlein in the school library and was especially enthralled by a teacher's reading of The Wizard of Oz (much better than the movie). When Star Trek aired in 1966, I was greatly chagrined that it wasn't broadcast in my area (this was way before cable). I finally got into the series via reruns.
The 70's were my teenage years and a wasteland for me as far as books, movies, and TV went. I just absorbed the general run of drivel on TV and the radio and little of it left any impression on me (with the exception of the Kung Fu TV series--that was special). I didn't read much then, but I did get into Christian literature since I was heavy into church at the time and Hal Lindsey's books were popular.
As a young adult in the 80's, I widened my views. Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica revived my interest in science fiction, and I rediscovered reading fiction. I loved the Star Wars novelizations as much as the movies, was impressed by James Clavell's Shogun, and then there was my all-time favorite: The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Mostly though, I was reading a lot of nonfiction science-popularizing books (Carl Sagan was my favorite). Later though, moving into the 90's, I dared read some New Age and Eastern thought (re: Strieber, Vallee, Ouspensky, et. al.).
Of course, life hasn't been all reading and movies. From my mid-twenties until now I've worked in Information Technology as an avid geek. But I graduated from geekdom (mostly) when I met and married Donna. Establishing a home, paying taxes, and raising children forced me into a maturity that reflected in my reading.
Being concerned about the future for my family, I started reading about politics, climate change, the peaking of oil production, protest movements, and the extension of the US empire (re: Ruppert, Kunstler, Heinberg, Klare, Simmons, et. al.).
All this reading, with a smattering of the classics thrown in, brought me to adulthood as a fan of spiritual-adventure-science-fiction-paranormal-political-classic-apocalyptic literature (hard to find that section in a Barnes and Noble). And I wanted to write such stories too, but just couldn't find the "handle" I needed to get into it. Too many distractions, I suppose.
A turning point came when I returned to college in my mid-twenties, and made the conscious decision to do the best writing I could on essay questions and reports because I had dreaded such work in the past. These were many in my second college career but I did well on all of them. Then over the following years, slowly, I read writing books, took correspondent classes, and even attended some in-school classes. Whenever I had to write anything for school or work, I treated it as a writing lesson.
My second big turning point was taking two classes in short-story writing at Milsaps College (part of their Continuing Education series). While the material was largely review for me, the instructor struck me as an example of someone successfully doing the kind of writing I had been reading and studying about for years. He encouraged the class to write and submit work. I did and got a short story accepted and published on a website. That broke the ice for me and I've continued the momentum.
The result is this website and the books and stories it links to. It is my great hope that my work will find a sympathetic readership, and that you will be among them.
Ray Foy
My childhood years were the 1960's, when television was coming into its prime and Westerns were the popular fare. I watched most all of them: Wanted Dead or Alive, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Branded, and The Virginian. They were all formula-driven glorifications of the American frontier myth featuring strong male leads whose characters never developed, and who solved all problems with violence (great fun for preteens).
But even more than these simple series, I loved stories of fantasy or science fiction. I read every book by Robert Heinlein in the school library and was especially enthralled by a teacher's reading of The Wizard of Oz (much better than the movie). When Star Trek aired in 1966, I was greatly chagrined that it wasn't broadcast in my area (this was way before cable). I finally got into the series via reruns.
The 70's were my teenage years and a wasteland for me as far as books, movies, and TV went. I just absorbed the general run of drivel on TV and the radio and little of it left any impression on me (with the exception of the Kung Fu TV series--that was special). I didn't read much then, but I did get into Christian literature since I was heavy into church at the time and Hal Lindsey's books were popular.
As a young adult in the 80's, I widened my views. Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica revived my interest in science fiction, and I rediscovered reading fiction. I loved the Star Wars novelizations as much as the movies, was impressed by James Clavell's Shogun, and then there was my all-time favorite: The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Mostly though, I was reading a lot of nonfiction science-popularizing books (Carl Sagan was my favorite). Later though, moving into the 90's, I dared read some New Age and Eastern thought (re: Strieber, Vallee, Ouspensky, et. al.).
Of course, life hasn't been all reading and movies. From my mid-twenties until now I've worked in Information Technology as an avid geek. But I graduated from geekdom (mostly) when I met and married Donna. Establishing a home, paying taxes, and raising children forced me into a maturity that reflected in my reading.
Being concerned about the future for my family, I started reading about politics, climate change, the peaking of oil production, protest movements, and the extension of the US empire (re: Ruppert, Kunstler, Heinberg, Klare, Simmons, et. al.).
All this reading, with a smattering of the classics thrown in, brought me to adulthood as a fan of spiritual-adventure-science-fiction-paranormal-political-classic-apocalyptic literature (hard to find that section in a Barnes and Noble). And I wanted to write such stories too, but just couldn't find the "handle" I needed to get into it. Too many distractions, I suppose.
A turning point came when I returned to college in my mid-twenties, and made the conscious decision to do the best writing I could on essay questions and reports because I had dreaded such work in the past. These were many in my second college career but I did well on all of them. Then over the following years, slowly, I read writing books, took correspondent classes, and even attended some in-school classes. Whenever I had to write anything for school or work, I treated it as a writing lesson.
My second big turning point was taking two classes in short-story writing at Milsaps College (part of their Continuing Education series). While the material was largely review for me, the instructor struck me as an example of someone successfully doing the kind of writing I had been reading and studying about for years. He encouraged the class to write and submit work. I did and got a short story accepted and published on a website. That broke the ice for me and I've continued the momentum.
The result is this website and the books and stories it links to. It is my great hope that my work will find a sympathetic readership, and that you will be among them.
Ray Foy