Philip Moss

Philip J. Moss is a labor/employment arbitrator and mediator who lives in Maine with his wife Phyllis. His hobbies include cooking, white water canoeing/poling, acting in community theater and riding his 1200 Bandit. He is the author of "JANISSARIES and other stories," "THE CHASTENER OF SOULS and other stories," "CONGRESS INVESTIGATES FAIRIES and other flights of fancy," "WHO WILL WATCH THE WATCHMEN? and other fiction," "GARRISON," "A SHOOTING IN AUGUSTA," ANIMAL FARM and "A LONG DROP." His novella, "TIDES," received an Honorable Mention in the December 2015 Glimmer Train Fiction Open contest.

"DRAGON'S TEETH" - is the story of Sybil Endicott, who has been named Teacher of the Year after thirty years of teaching in Dorset, Maine. One of her own students unmasks her as Stephanie Morris, who was charged with being an accessory to the murder of a policemen in New Jersey in 1971, and who then jumped bail, and went underground. The tumultuous events of the late sixties and early seventies - including the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the riots that followed, the war in Vietnam and the protests it brought, and the shootings at Kent State - form the background to her story.

In "EL TESORO," Joshua Prentice drops out of college and leaves his wealthy family to spend two years working with the poor in Honduras. He returns home haunted by a violent incident that he witnessed there, and spends six months wandering the back roads of New England, before ending up in Garrison, Maine. On a whim he purchases Raoul’s Pub there, and discovers in the pub’s cellar a letter written more than 250 years ago that hints at a treasure trove. When he is discovered dead in the cellar of Raoul’s, there is speculation that the supposed treasure was the motive.

"DRAGON'S TEETH" was, in part, an exploration of how the past shadows the present in the Internet Age. Phil's most recent story, "DISAPPEARING ACT," explores the twists and turns of memory and imagination.

How is it that the richest and most powerful country in the world is led by politicians who can’t - or won’t - make policy based on facts? In POLICY and POLITICS, Phil considers this question, and addresses various matters of policy (homelessness, infrastructure, gun control, income inequality, government subsidies), while occasionally poking fun at the politicians who make up their own facts.

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If the first book of mine you pick up is Bad JuJu, you will find many references to people and events that occurred in earlier novels that also took place in Garrison, ME. They were written in this order, and it will be easier to follow if read in this order:

GARRISON

A SHOOTING IN AUGUSTA

A LONG DROP

BAD JUJU

EL TESORO

followed by the short story What Dreams May Come.