On Writing and Storytelling: ‘The Jim Garraty Chronicles’ is Almost One Month Old!

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 – Orlando, Florida

Hi, everyone.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost a month since I published The Jim Garraty Chronicles: A Life in Four Movements, an omnibus that presents Reunion: A Story, Reunion: Coda, Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen, and the bonus tale The Summer of Two Movies.

I’m still not sure why I decided to devote so much time and effort into this project, other than the fact that I wasn’t quite ready to write a new story so soon after releasing Reunion: Coda and Comings and Goings in spring and summer of last year. Maybe I thought that collecting all my existing Jim Garraty stories in one economical volume would entice reluctant readers to check out my work. Or, perhaps, it was hubris. I don’t know the answer, Dear Reader. All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea back in October 2025, and once I started the Chronicles, I was locked and loaded and couldn’t quit.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve managed to sell as many as seven copies. Of these, I’ve purchased three for my collection; I bought the Kindle edition on July 14, the day it was released, plus two copies of the paperback.

(Why two copies, you ask? Because in my haste to publish The Jim Garraty Chronicles, I mistakenly thought I had caught every imaginable formatting and editing mistake before I submitted the manuscript file to Kindle Direct Publishing, only to see a handful of printer’s devils I’d missed when I prepped the book for publication. I fixed the mistakes and sent revisions to KDP, and I ordered a new copy of my book.)

In addition to the modest earnings I’ll get when I get my royalties payment for July, The Jim Garraty Chronicles has also received its first Amazon review. A five-star review, at that.

The Jim Garraty Chronicles goes far beyond the classic trope of ‘the one that got away’ to explore the soul of a man who chooses dignity and honesty in a harsh world. Jim Garraty is guided by music, beauty, and love, making him a deeply compelling main character.
 

The Jim Garraty Chronicles goes far beyond the classic trope of ‘the one that got away’ to explore the soul of a man who chooses dignity and honesty in a harsh world. Jim Garraty is guided by music, beauty, and love, making him a deeply compelling main character.
 

Amazon Reviewer

So far, that’s the only review on the book’s Amazon product page, but I hope there will be more as time passes.

Here’s an excerpt from the foreword to The Jim Garraty Chronicles:

I didn’t plan on writing a four‑story cycle. In fact, for a long time I didn’t plan on writing much of anything after Reunion: A Story in 1998. That novella felt complete — Jim grieving at Marty’s grave, Mark heading off to show a house, Jim returning to New York alone. The door seemed closed. I figured I’d written my one good piece of fiction and that was that.

But stories have a way of tapping you on the shoulder when they want to be told. And sometimes they tap for decades.

 Before I get to that, though, I need to talk about South Miami High — because that place, which I never wanted to attend, ended up shaping the emotional landscape of these stories more than I ever expected.

I was supposed to be a Southwest kid. Tropical Elementary fed into Riviera Junior High, and Riviera fed into Southwest Senior High. That was the plan. That was the path. That was where everyone I knew was going. But in the spring of 1980 — around the time of the McDuffie riots — the School Board decided that disabled students who had trouble getting to class on time at Southwest (which didn’t have an elevator then) would be transferred to South Miami instead.

 I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t get the transfer rescinded. And I didn’t want to attend Coral Park, which would have been my school if I were able‑bodied. So I arrived at SMSH with a chip on my shoulder and a bad attitude.

 My first day didn’t help.

 I hadn’t slept the night before. I got to my bus stop an hour early. The driver didn’t stop because she was expecting a kid in a wheelchair — which I wasn’t. I waited until nine in the morning, woke my mother, and she drove me to school. We got lost. I arrived late. The office didn’t have my schedule. I sat alone in the auditorium until Mr. Passman came down from the second floor and hauled me off to Business Math — a cruel joke for someone who hates math.

By the time I made it to lunch, I was exhausted, depressed, and wondering what I’d done to deserve this detour in life.

And then I saw him.

A tall man in a gray suit, white hair, handlebar mustache, walkie‑talkie in hand — someone who clearly mattered. I nodded politely, because even on a terrible day, I knew how to be respectful. I started to walk past him, and he said: “Good morning, Captain! I’m Dr. Burchell, and welcome to South Miami.”

I’d seen his name on the postcard announcing the first day of school, but I never expected to meet him — certainly not on that day. Yet there he was, greeting me with humor and warmth, noticing the knockoff fatigue jacket I wore with the Americal Division patch and captain’s bars.

In that moment, the school I didn’t want to attend became a little less foreign. A little less hostile. A little more mine.

It’s funny how small moments like that stay with you. They become part of the emotional soil you write from, even decades later.