Monty Joynes

I began adventuring at the age of sixteen when I sailed out of my home port of Norfolk, Virginia as the third cook on a Norwegian coal freighter. Later, at the University of Virginia, I financed my degree as a folk-singing troubadour and then spent eighteen months in Europe as a poet and filmmaker before being drafted into the Vietnam War era Army where I served with the 91st Evacuation Hospital and witnessed the casualties of war.

In a journalistic career, I founded a city magazine, was the associate publisher of a national one, and then wrote a series of guidebooks that made me one of the most published travel writers and restaurant critics in the USA. During those years I also founded a World Affairs Council and became the aide to ambassador-level dignitaries in cooperation with the US State Department and the Secret Service.

By 1984 I had written my first two of what became 20 novels by 2010. I also wrote and published non-fiction books including making-of-the-movie large format books and a long biography of two subjects. I've also written seven screenplays adapted from my own novels and books by other authors, and classical music libretti for a commissioned oratorio and two full operas adapted from two of my novels.

In all, I have authored over 50 major works, much of it unseen by publishers. Perhaps I have been guilty of rushing too quickly from one adventure to the next without regard for the commercial potential of what I had previously produced. For this I apologize to my ex-wife, my current wife of nearly thirty years, and our combined three daughters who were an adventure in themselves. Nevertheless, now you the reader get the benefits of my lifetime of creative adventuring as the new age of electronic book publishing allows these orphaned manuscripts to appear.

I have written in many genres and never allowed my literary craft to lapse into formula. What I offer my readers are characters and stories that have fascinated me to the point of creative obsession. If I am nothing else, I am an acknowledged storyteller. If you do not both laugh and cry in the reading of my books, I am not worthy of my calling. But dear reader, please know that I have dedicated my entire life to your review.