In The Good 'Ol Summertime

With Georgia cooking in record heat, my wife Donna and I escaped (as usual) to our small condo in the suburbs of Chicago for the summer.  Grandkids trooped in from Minnesota to enliven our routine and    prompt us to rediscover attractions of the city, including its world-class museums, Navy Pier, and eye-popping Millennium Park. (See picture wall at left where image periodically opens her mouth and shoots a geyser of water at delighted kids) .  This time we added a laugh-a-minute performance by the zany Blue Man Group to the schedule.  Then it’s swim, eat, bike, eat, hike and--eat.  So it goes at Camp Heiring.

As for my warm-weather writing production, the award-winning regional publication Lake Oconee Living  saw fit to print two of my pieces.  “Contraband” is a tongue-in-cheek story about the need to be speakeasy sneaky in obtaining a copy of the Atlanta Journal outside of Atlanta.  LOL’s fall issue featured original ghost stories, and mine zeroed in on an outlandish Nuwaubian cult that fascinated Georgia with Egyptian trappings and weird doctrine a decade ago.  Titled “The Mask of Nuwabu” (see LOL mag illustration on right) it conjured up the “to-die-for” last ceremony of the cult and its insidious  leader.  (The real dude is now serving time in a federal prison.)

The Seasonal Heart, a collection of my Christmas stories and poems, is headed for publication this month. Pardon the boast, but it is a handsome, full-color, coffee-table book with holiday and winter inspired paintings by Gail Vail and esteemed artist friends.  Watch for details on our lakecountryauthors.com website.   

Let me hear from you.  George Heiring