Under The Dragon's Eye began with a story I wrote when I was 15 years old, and if you had told me then where that story would eventually lead, I doubt I would have believed you. My Creative Writing teacher gave me an F on it and told me I would never be a writer. At 15, I didn't have decades of publishing experience behind me or a shelf of books with my name on them to prove otherwise. I was a kid, he was the teacher, and what he said stuck with me.
The thing is, writing and stories were part of my life long before I ever walked into that Creative Writing classroom. I was reading Shakespeare in a children's book at the age of two and Nancy Drew by five. By junior high I had read a children's Bible so many times that I had memorized it, and by high school I was devouring Agatha Christie, fascinated by the French scattered through the books because I was studying French myself, along with V.C. Andrews. I wasn't a teenager who had suddenly decided to try writing because I needed an elective. Words, books and stories had been part of my world for as long as I could remember.
I had also already been published. My first published poem appeared in 1981, and I continued writing poetry from around the age of ten onward. Some of those poems eventually became part of two published poetry books. By the time I sat in that Creative Writing classroom, writing wasn't some future possibility I was considering. I was already doing it.
And I kept doing it. In January 1985, with the Ryan White story bringing the AIDS crisis painfully close to home here in Indiana, I wrote a center spread on AIDS for the school newspaper. Ryan was an Indiana teenager, and what was happening to him made the fear, misinformation and human consequences of AIDS impossible for me to ignore. My response was to research it and write about it.
Journalism continued to give me a very different message about my writing than that Creative Writing classroom had. In 1986, I received the Outstanding Journalism Award from Mississinewa High School in Gas City, Indiana, becoming the first person in the school's history to receive that award. I still have the paperwork from that year, the plaque and the school notice telling my family I was going to receive an award.
Creative Writing Said No, Journalism Said Keep Going
I also attended the Ball State University Journalism Workshops in Muncie that year, and following those workshops I was named second alternate for a Freshman Achievement Scholarship. I have kept quite a bit of that material all these years, and some of the original documents are now part of my Achievements, Awards & Certifications archive.
Looking back, the contrast is hard to miss. One teacher had made a judgment about what I could become, while journalism was giving me opportunities, recognition and room to grow. I wish I could say I immediately dismissed his words, but that isn't how being 15 works. When you're young, adults in positions of authority can get inside your head, and sometimes their words stay there much longer than they deserve to.
His words stayed with me. So did the story, and I kept writing.
The Story That Became Under The Dragon's Eye
That teenage Creative Writing assignment stayed with me while I grew up, gained life experience and became a professional writer. Over the years I wrote articles, columns and books, worked in both print and online publishing, and built a career around the very thing I had once been told I couldn't do.
Eventually that early story became Under The Dragon's Eye, a published crime/thriller. There is a particular satisfaction in being able to hold the finished book in my hands knowing where it started. For me, it is a reminder of how differently things might have gone if I had let one person's judgment become the final word.
And the story didn't stop with Under The Dragon's Eye. It eventually continued with Under The Dragon's Shadow, which makes what is happening this October especially meaningful to me.
Under The Dragon's Shadow Is Bookworm Orchard's October Book of the Month
Bookworm Orchard here in Marion selected Under The Dragon's Shadow as its October 2026 Book of the Month. The book club will meet to discuss it on Friday, October 30, from 6 to 8 PM at Bookworm Orchard, 428 S. Washington St., Suite 101, Marion, Indiana. See the Bookworm Orchard book club event on Facebook.
That is one of those moments that makes me think about the long road a book can travel. What began as a story I wrote at 15 eventually grew into two books, and now a local independent bookstore has chosen the sequel for readers to discuss together.
I don't think the 15-year-old version of me could have imagined that particular turn in the story.
Crime Thrillers for the Darker Days of Fall
October feels like a natural time to bring both books back into the spotlight. The days are getting shorter, the nights are cooler, and this is the time of year when I find myself drawn to stories with a little more darkness in them. Under The Dragon's Eye and Under The Dragon's Shadow are crime/thrillers, so if your fall reading tastes run toward danger, secrets, betrayal and the darker things people are capable of doing to one another, they fit the season well.
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If you are new to the books, I recommend beginning with Under The Dragon's Eye because that is where the story begins, then moving on to Under The Dragon's Shadow. You can also find both books, along with my other published work, on my Books page. If you are local and have already read Under The Dragon's Shadow, I would love to have you join the October 30 discussion at Bookworm Orchard.
One Grade Does Not Get to Write the Rest of Your Story
I have been writing long enough to know that criticism matters. A good editor can catch what I miss, push me to make a piece stronger and sometimes tell me that something simply isn't working. There is a huge difference, though, between teaching someone how to become better at their craft and deciding that a 15-year-old has no future at it.
My Creative Writing teacher was wrong about me, but I don't think the lesson is that I somehow proved every critic wrong. The lesson I carried away from it is that no teacher, editor, reviewer or single bad grade gets to decide the entire course of a person's creative life. Had I stopped writing then, there would have been no Under The Dragon's Eye, no Under The Dragon's Shadow and a whole lot of other books and articles would never have existed either.
I'm glad I kept writing, and I'm glad I kept that old story. All these years later, people are still turning its pages, and on October 30 some of them will sit down together at Bookworm Orchard to talk about where the story went next.
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