C.L. Collyer

My name’s John Lofquist and I live and work in Boca Raton, FL. USA. I am married to an extremely encouraging wife, Cindy, who is a mostly-patient sounding board for my sometimes off-the-wall storylines. Giving credit where it is certainly due, she has on many occasions redirected me in storylines when I was up against a wall with writer’s block.

I have two married children, a son Scott and his family in Ottawa, and a daughter Nicole and her family in Houston; between them. I have three wonderful grandchildren; Bella, Alexander and Samantha. I also have two of the greatest step-daughters, one who lives in South Beach here in Florida another who recently moved to the Manhattan, New York area.

You’ll find that most of my poems and books will be written using pseudonyms or pen names such as John Henry Gardner or C.L. Collyer. While I am proud of my surname, Lofquist, somehow it didn’t have that literary panache and cachet that I wanted. These pen names were not pulled out of the air nor did they come to me in a moment of reverie. John Henry Gardner was my maternal grandfather and a man who I idolized from the time I could talk to the time he passed away. C.L. Collyer is all about my wife Cindy. It comprises her first two initials and her maiden name.

As a young boy I read a great deal. I actually came from a family of voracious readers. I started my love of reading with the requisite nursery rhymes then graduating to the Hardy Boys’ detective series that my father had purchased for me. In school, English composition and literature, history and geography soon became my favorite subjects. I used to love to write stories for school projects, and even for classmates that just couldn’t or didn’t want to write, either because they couldn’t think outside the box or they just didn’t have the grammar and vocabulary resources, nor the imagination, to create something interesting. Some of my favorite recollections, as a teenager and on into adulthood, were the fraternal verbal challenges between my younger brothers, themselves bibliophiles and wordsmiths, and me to see who had the bigger and better vocabulary. There was no deference given on their parts regards respect of age or kindredness in those days (and this still continues to this day).

I have a consummate passion for the English language and the grammar that goes with it and so for the past five or so years I have been a marketing and communications consultant to several companies and have been very busy in copywriting, editing, public-relations releases and just about anything that involves grammar, vocabulary, spelling and most of all, imagination.

My avocation is writing picture books for kids aged two to eight, mid-graders, and young adults. Although I have written poetry of all types: free verse, Ogden Nash-types, New Age and other genres, I keep coming back to what makes me the happiest – making children’s imaginations burst with excitement and fun. Nothing in the world makes me happier than to see a child laugh or sport a huge smile, and to know that I helped bring that on.

You can visit my site at: www.inspirion2.com