I am Kerry Michael Wood, a graduate of Yale University with a Master's degree in English. I am busily retired and live in Pacific Grove, CA. I am attempting to market my self-published memoir, Past Imperfect, Present Progressive. I spend much of my spare time at the computer and playing golf - activities in which I display dazzling ineptitude. I often long for the non-electric Smith-Corona portable typewriter on which I produced copy for most of the eight textbooks I co-authored for Scott, Foresman and Company.
I started my formal education doing hard time at a Catholic military boarding school at the age of 4 in 1942. With the end of WWII, I returned to ordinary parochial elementary and high school and then matriculated at Yale. I began my career as a teacher of secondary school English and French in Menlo Park. I took two years off to fulfill military service studying Russian at the Presidio of Monterey's Defense Language Institute.
I resumed teaching in East Palo Alto adding basic Russian to my course offerings. I also commenced a marriage that has lasted for 47 years and produced two sons. Three of those years were spent teaching English and acting as athletics director at Robert Academy of Istanbul, Turkey, Returning to the USA, I concluded my 37-year career by doing the final 29 at Woodside High School in Woodside, CA.
I have a Life Secondary Teaching credential, have won assorted prizes in prose and poetry, and was vice president of the Central California Writers club, an affiliate of the California Writers Club. I am a member of the U. C. Berkeley Bay Area Writers Project and a regular contributor to their publication Digital Paper.
Don't spread this around, but I'm a grammar buff and fascinated by etymology. Did you know that grammar is glamorous? The two words are related etymologically. I can be reached at kerrywood007@comcast.net
Additional info at www.kerrymichaelwood.com
My passion is ...
the English language
I know too much about ...
grammar
My parents always told me ...
Don't blame yourself on us.
My childhood ambition ...
to succeed in athletics and cut a swathe through the opposite sex
My favorite memory ...
holding in my hands a book with my name on the spine
Why I write ...
It's one activity in which my ineptitude is less glaring and salient
What I am reading/watching/listening to ...
help menus/a blinking cursor on a computer screen/borborygmi
My first job ...
pitching watermelons
My best moment ...
there are too many
My inspiration ...
still waiting for it
A ballad hovers, haunting melody— Begins its serenade within my soul. A minor key bewails the mystery Of love that weeps beyond my heart’s control. Bright angels hear - lament in harmony As thunder drums emotion starts its roll. Beloved one, please be aware of me And how my passion takes its painful toll. Hear me announce my firm intent. Declare myself: You are the glowing fire Consuming all this lover’s discontent And leaving embers of unquenched desire. Attend me now, believe my promise of A flood of warm and never ending love.
More..Kerry Michael Wood
Pacific Grove, California US
Member since: April 2007
Articles Written: 412
Writers Invited: 7