George A Ricker

More than 50 years ago, a high school English teacher asked me a question. I was in the 11th grade at the time, and the question was contained in a comment on an essay that I had written for his class. The teacher, whose name was Jerry Salek, said, "You are becoming a good writer. So what will you do with it?" I suppose, in a way, I have spent the bulk of my life trying to answer that question.

Over the years I have written thousands of pages containing hundreds of thousands of words. I have written essays, poetry, short stories, novels, non-fiction, even a one-act play. I have written newspaper articles, columns and editorials. Whatever I have had to do to earn a living, I have always thought of myself as a writer. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, I have never had much success getting my work published. This is mostly my own fault but not for the reason you might suspect. I simply never have had the patience to deal with all the nonsense most book and magazine publishers insist on putting authors through. So after writing "Godless in America: conversations with an atheist," I decided to go the print-on-demand route. For the most part, I have enjoyed the experience. That's why I used the same approach after deciding to publish a selection of material from my "Godless in America" website. That book is titled "mere atheism: no gods...no problem!"

I am a retired journalist, but I have worked at a variety of occupations in my life. I am happily married with a son, three daughters and three grandsons. I have lived in Florida for almost all my life. Currently, my wife and I live in Palm Bay, which is in Brevard County south of the Kennedy Space Center. I can look out my front window and watch rockets launch into space from Cape Canaveral.

If you want to learn more about me or my writing, drop by my website and have a look around. That's "Godless in America" at http://www.godlessinamerica.com.