Hands Like Eyes: Poems, Songs and Fantasies (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780615839035)

I have been a college English instructor and an editor of Southwest literature. While teaching in the 1970s, I operated two successful businesses: Santay Publishing and the Backdoor Lounge. In 1973 I decided to seek a more creative challenge. With assistance from Richard Santelli and Kathleen McGary, I compiled, edited, and published "Passing Through," a major anthology of contemporary Southwest literature, in 1974. The book was adopted as a freshman reader by El Paso Community College. After earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in professional writing from the University of Southern California in 1981, I was a performer and contributing writer for "Beyond Blindness," a one-hour documentary narrated by Patty Duke and produced for National Public Television. I sold my first article to Publishers Weekly in that same year, and was a successful contestant on The $25,000 Pyramid in 1987. I am now at work on a book-length memoir, a portion of which was included in "Reading Lips and Other Ways to Overcome a Disability," published in 2008. I continue to write creatively, perform public speaking engagements, and work as a professional musician (piano player-fiddler) in Austin, El Paso and Los Angeles. I live in El Paso with my wife Valora. I have four grown children and four magnificent grandchildren.