I've been focusing on the one paragraph challenge as I sign books. Here's how it works. The author chants briefly over his book. Don't be alarmed. It might be a little loud, but it's essential for the magic to work. The author then hands the book to the reader, who opens it to a random page, selects a paragraph and hands it back. The author then provides a brief background setup and reads the paragraph out loud. If the reader is duly entertained, the one paragraph challenge has been successful. Spoiler alert: the challenge has never failed.

Coming of Age

My novels are inspired by world travel, rock and roll lifestyle and courtroom drama. They're about real people; not super heroes. It's about Boomer Lit, reconnecting people to their hopes and dreams.

Available now to pre-order...

Coming June of 2024
An artist struggles to regain creative spirit after her fiancé is killed in a far-right militia bombing.
 
            Murray is helping her mother run a struggling truck plaza in Indiana when she falls in love with Ben, a truckdriver on hiatus from Stanford University. A shooting at the plaza draws national attention as drivers rally to support and reopen the truck stop. Murray and Ben galvanize “Trucker Nation” into a campaign to stop the hatred poisoning the country. They encourage people to embrace the diversity that keeps the supply chain moving.
 
            The victim of the shooting is the childhood buddy of a psychologically damaged war veteran who hates the federal government and the Teamsters’ Union. He calls himself The Commander and sees The Highway Diner as profiting from the death of his friend. He conducts a campaign of intimidation from his heavily armed compound in rural Michigan. When death threats, billboard campaigns, and kidnapping fail, he bombs the plaza. Ben is killed.
 
            Murray’s grief and trauma overwhelm her once The Commander is finally defeated.  She enrolls in art school at The University of Chicago, but all she can do is cry when she stands in front of her easel. With the help of friends, Murray realizes that being able to paint again is not the final goal of grieving. It is the creative process that helps her wade through the sadness.   
  

Novels

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Benjamin Franklin Silver Award Winner
Mark Paul Smith is excited and pleased to be recognized by the
Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)

The Story

I started writing for the newspaper in 1972. It was thirty reporters in a sprawling newsroom, getting yelled at by a curmudgeonly editor chain smoking Camel straights. From writing obituaries as "the death editor," to covering cops, schools, social services, city government and features, I learned that if a man bites a dog, you got a story.

The People

I'm old enough now that everyone I meet reminds me of someone I knew before. I've found that people all over the world are pretty much the same. We all love a good story, one that teaches us about ourselves and how we fit into the big mystery. I write about the good life and the bad life and how the important decisions have a way of making themselves.
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