I was raised on my family’s farm outside Yuma, Arizona, and thought I would become a farmer when I grew up. That didn’t happen. Instead, I studied literature and writing as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona and as a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. At UT, I wrote book reviews for The Daily Texan. I was also a member of a loosely organized group of writers who gave public readings wherever we could find space. We gave reading in libraries, bookstores, and bars. I taught middle and high school English for thirty-five years. During my summer breaks I wrote. Since retiring I’ve written EMPTY FUTURE and The FI EXPERIMENT. I also have two other novel manuscripts and several plays. My most recent play, “Links,” was produced at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. pdaliauthor.com
BOOKS
After the invention of teleportation, the world’s population has taken advantage of instantaneous travel to visit anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, all who enter the machines have their souls ripped from their bodies, leaving behind animated thinking corpses bereft of love, compassion, and empathy. They do not tolerate the living.
An alien civilization observing our planet for thousands of years has chosen one individual to make its initial contact with the human race. Maybe they chose the wrong human
COLOR WORLD
(unpublished)
Thirteen-year-old Jasmine Garcia enters a fairy circle of mushrooms and is transported to another universe where her imagination is her superpower. There, she meets a colorful race desperately in need of her newfound magic.
PLAYS
PLAYS
LINKS is a six-person ensemble that finds the concepts of fate, free will, and the loss of cultural roots ricocheting around the stage like golf balls on a driving range. We watch two Hispanic families navigate reality and imagined “what-ifs” propelled by notions of friendship, love, and forced assimilation as the narrative shape-shifts time and space revealing truth before our very eyes.
LINKS was produced at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, where it received positive reviews and drew large audiences. Its last show was sold out.
VERACITY
(Unproduced)
An older playwright and a young agent lock horns during a meeting, resulting in a civil lawsuit. During the trial, the audience takes the role of the jury.
FILMSCRIPTS
Nate Kit
(Unproduced)
I have written a script about the origin story of a black cowboy named Nate Kit. Nate escapes servitude and flees westward. He is pursued by agents tasked to return him for punishment by his former owner. After a series of adventures and narrow escapes, Nate ends up on a West Texas cattle ranch where he learns to shoot and picks up the skills needed to be kept on as a valuable ranch hand. When the agents finally catch up to him, Nate is ready to fight for his freedom.
I grew up on a farm outside of Yuma, Arizona. I didn’t get paid working for my family, so I hired myself out doing a variety of odd jobs, working at stockyards and stringing barbed wire fences. I worked with real cowboys. They were white, black, Mexican American, and Native American. The American West has always been multicultural. I wanted to explore the reality of our history in my story.