The Warlock Rewritten

A wise man once said to me, ?There are two of whom we can never be jealous—our students and our sons.?  Since I was both, I have remembered the saying well.  I?m very proud of my children, especially since you?re reading this courtesy of one of them and with the support of the others.  I can?t envy them or be jealous of their accomplishments, because they reflect so well on their mother and myself.

I also have had occasion to be proud of some of my graduates—notably, in this case, Peter D?Alessio.  I met him when I was teaching at a New Jersey college in his home town.  He is always friendly, and filled with energy and infectious enthusiasm.  He was an excellent student and helped me through many of the extra-curricular activates I tried to launch.  He was a fabulous story-teller who could set an audience laughing in a matter of minutes, whether that audience was one person or a hundred—but if you sneaked in some serious ideas, he could turn into a thoughtful, earnest fellow seeker after the unknowable answers.  He has always been a stalwart friend and sympathetic companion.  I?ve been honored to know him.

However, I can?t claim to have taught him anything about writing.  I did coach him in how to produce and direct television programs.  He turned into an excellent writer anyway, but declined to try for a career in professional TV and took a bread job instead.

Why?  Well, he had two very good reasons.  First, because he wanted to spend his evenings playing guitar in clubs—and, second, playing what he wanted to play, not the umpteenth version of ?Proud Mary? just to please the crowds.  So, of course, he accomplished both, gaining quite a following in the world of blues.  He did not, however, get much writing done.

What could I say?  Tell him to stop being a true artist?  Perish the thought!

Then Bill Fawcett asked me to co-edit Dragon's Eye, a shared universe anthology about dragons, and I saw my chance.  I recruited Pete to write a story about dragons for me, which he did quite ably—and the dragons turned out to be unique and memorable.  It didn?t make it into the anthology, unfortunately; it was one of those wonderful stories that was too long for a short story, but too short for a novel.

So Pete discovered more story to tell and started adding to it, shifting perspectives and making the improbable believable.

The result is what you see?a novel entitled Uncle Merl?s Bar & Grill.  You?re about to read it now; I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.