Jack Duckworth

I should not be confused with the British television character Jack Duckworth from the BBC series, "Coronation Street." Although my grandfather came from England, I'm an American through and through. Some books that come up from a Jack Duckworth search on the Amazon site are about the BBC television character.

I was born in 1946 in El Paso Texas as an Air Force brat, moved to Awase and Kadena Okinawa in 1954, then to Montgomery Alabama during the Selma March, then to Springfield Virginia in 1959. I graduated from Lee high school (named for Lee District not R.E.Lee) in 1964. I went to Paris France for summers while attending the University of Rhode Island where I received a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering. I then worked for the U.S. Government in the Federal Power Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for 32 years. After retirement in 2002 I drove a special education school bus for Fairfax County driving the most precious children for nine years.

I started writing in 1973, with my first short novel, set in the old west, "The Chinook River Princess" of my Judgment Ring series. It was followed by the contemporary book 5 of the series about bicycle riding and racing "Staying Away." At that time I was riding my bicycle to work in Washington DC three days per week, a total of 165 mile per week and loving every second of every ride. I tried to give my readers a taste of the joy, beauty and danger of depending upon a bike for transportation.

In the 1980's I wrote "No Tears for an Empty Grave" the sixth book in the Judgment Ring series. I left books 2 through 4 to be written later to fill the time gap between the 18th and 21st centuries of book one and contemporary books five and six.

I wrote the Judgment Ring books based on an inspiration of a sermon by Ray Chamberlain who, at the time, was the minister of the Messiah United Methodist Church in West Springfield Virginia. Reverend Chamberlain's sermon was based on the premise that there is no Recording Angel who's job would be to record all of the sins of men and women and challenge each with their record on Judgment Day. I thought at the time what if there were something else, some inanimate object that did record the sins of mankind? That became the premise for the Judgment Ring series of novels in which the main characters are challenged with life and death decisions the sum of all which will determine the ultimate fate of all mankind.

The other books I have written include: In the Shoes of a Friend (book 7 of the Judgment Ring books), Christmas Backwards, The Woeful State of the Union, and Power to the People. I also co-authored "A Voice in the Wilderness -- a Pastor's journal of ground zero" with the now deceased Reverend Camille Ogle Yorkey who spent months at ground zero in New York after 911 ministering the volunteers and to the grieving and the dead pulled from the rubble.

My faith was truly nurtured ten years ago by the book "The Prayer of Jabez" and my own version of that ancient prayer has engendered a personal relationship with my God. That personal relationship gave me the impetus to write my latest short novel, "The Atheistic Disciple" and to thereby share my faith with my readers.