Dick Paetzke

I'm a longtime advertising agency creative director and writer as well as head of my own creative services business. A native of Seattle, Washington, I've been an infantry soldier, hobby dog trainer, cold and shivering duck hunter, traveler, amateur photographer, firearms dealer, songwriter, stepfather, ardent reader, recovering motor scooter rider, novice grandfather, author, student portrait artist and fancier of well-cooked pot roast. I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington where I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. I'm fluent in German, conversant in Italian, and can fumble along in French. My wife Adriana and I make our home in Seattle and Lecce, Italy.

The genesis of POSTCARDS. LITTLE LETTERS FROM LIFE was one of our earlier trips to Lecce in southern Italy. Instead of sending postcards to people back home, I decided to send illustrated e-mails. After all there's not room enough on a postcard to scribble much more than "having a wonderful time" or "our hotel room is the one with the X." People asked me for more. My little letters somehow transported people to where they could see, feel and experience things that touched them as they touched me. So I wrote more and then simply never stopped.

I began POSTCARDS while traveling, but it is not a travel book, or a book about Italy, or any of the dozens of things I've written about. It's about life and that happens wherever you are and wherever you look.

Of course looking and seeing are two different things.

I have a lawyer friend who came home from a two week trip with over 2,500 images on a digital disk. He must have seen his entire trip through the viewfinder of his camera. I had to wonder what he really experienced. It's easy to go through life like that, but you leave a lot out. My hope with POSTCARDS was to add more of the flavors, sounds, scents, dimensions, human fallibility and foibles that give everyday things their due respect as the important stuff of life.

It's human nature to look forward to "great moments" and I hope you have them aplenty. But just take a closer look at where you are Right Now if you want to savor some of life's most intense flavors.