Tom Sheehan
Poet and Author
ÒA great writer, perhaps a Great American
Writer, Tom Sheehan is also a great OCEAN.
He writes with his generous heart, from his vast memory, and tells American
stories from his lifelong home where the Saugus River winds its way to meet the
Atlantic Ocean along the Massachusetts coast. From the depths of his
experience, we walk through his life, meet many who touch his, then our lives,
and carry on the great American traditions of hard work, playing ball, of
sharing with family and friends, of living life to the fullest every moment.
His six year old grandson recently tapped his chest with his small fist, and
said, ÔIt's in our soul.Õ With Tom, we pay homage to all the moments in life,
big and small, and realize their ongoing value. On this Memorial Day weekend,
he carries out a great American tradition of remembering those he knew and
didn't know who served with him for America's freedom, for the world's freedom,
his lost comrades who gave their lives for us. He is a Great American who
reminds us, by his deeds, to be great Americans. You can read his
writing in every issue of OCEAN beginning with OCEAN Fall 2007, Issue 16. You can
purchase his books here: http://www.new-works.org/9_4sheehan/sheehan_bio.htmÓ
From
Ocean MagazineÕs Blog
Tom SheehanÕs latest books are Brief Cases, Short Spans, November 2008
from Press 53 of NC; From the Quickening, January 2009 from Pocol Press of VA; a
proposal for a collection of cowboy stories, Where the Cowboys Ride Forever, is in
the hands of a western publisher; other in-process works are Epic Cures II, and
novels Murder
from the Forum, Death of a Lottery Foe, An Accountable Death, The Keating
Script, and Death
of the Final God. His work is currently in or coming in Ocean Magazine,
Perigee, Rope and Wire Magazine, Qarrtsiluni, Green Silk Journal, Halfway down
the Stairs, Ad Hoc Monadnock, Hawk & Whippoorwill, Eden Waters Press,
Milspeak Memo, Milspeak Mentoring, Ensorcelled, Canopic Jar, SFWP, Eskimo Pie,
Lock Raven Review, Indite Circle, Northville Review, Pine Tree Mysteries, and
in the book coming from Press 53, Home of the Brave, Stories in Uniform. He has
10 Pushcart nominations, a Noted Story of 2007 nomination, the Georges Simenon
Award, and a selection for inclusion in the Dzanc Best of the Web Anthology for 2009. TomÕs
essay, ÒIs It Art, This Mentoring, or All Imagery?Ó is included in the
anthology, Milspeak: Warriors, Veterans,
Family, and Friends Writing the Military Experience (Press 53). Tom serves as a mentor for Milspeak Writers.
A Note on Anthologies
from Poet and Author Tom Sheehan: Anthology Connections
I
could have called my Dzanc story, ÒKnickers,Ó a legitimate creative piece of
non-fiction because so damned much of it was true, right to collected sounds,
expressions, the memories lingering yet, and the people of those memories. And
seeing ÒKnickersÓ lined up with other works in the Dzanc Books Best of the Web 2009 says it doesnÕt matter what label
I put on it; it stands as written, proof of the pudding that a pair of knickers
found in one Sunday afternoon at the beach a promised fate. That such an afternoon completes the
entries in this anthology is testament to the richness of those involved and
who pass through the lines of the piece.
Finding
your work in such an anthology, meaning it has been selected out of hundreds of
pieces of sturdy competition, is a pleasant ending to the tough hours in which
an unwieldy prose is pared to a presentable form, proved digestible, and found
delectable to a readerÕs taste. The sense of payback is enormous.
Home of the Brave; Stories
in Uniform, from Press 53, an anthology with an all-military
connection, is a further review of unforgettable people with basic beginnings
and heroic endings. Finding a creation of yours lined up with Tobias Wolff, Tim
OÕBrien, Kurt Vonnegut and James Salter, who flew some of his 100 combat
missions above my unit in Korea, comes off as a veteranÕs piece of the cake. I
know Jim Salter shared some of his aerial space with Ted Williams, hero in Red
Sox left field and beyond who came to be the subject of poems written in deep
fox holes and earthy bunkers in 1951 while those two pilots flew overhead.
And
from Press 53 again, comes another anthology of days of pressure, action and
peril as real as fragmentation, Milspeak: Warriors, Veterans, Family and
Friends Writing the Military Experience.
Here is the order of things so dependable one feels he is standing yet in the
ranks of comrades --- few things match that consideration.
Such associations spiral down into this collection, as they
did in my memoirs, A Collection of
Friends, (from Pocol Press) the dedication saying: For those who have
passed through Saugus, those comrades who bravely walked away from home and
fell elsewhere, and the frailest imaginable soldier of all, frightened and
glassy-eyed and knowing he is hapless, one foot onto the soil at D-Day or a
statistical sandy beach of the South Pacific and going down, but not to be
forgotten, not here.
Lastly, comes another
anthology titled Journey (Anthology from
Eden Waters Press) arriving in the same mail delivery with Home of the Brave. A writerÕs efforts,
the bent dreams, the upturned idea, the furrowed brow, find their way into
words that sing again and again. The music echoes.
Interviews
Interview at
Rope and Wire Magazine
Reviews
This Rare Earth and Other Flights
Articles
ÒSaugusÕs Own National
TreasureÓ
Recorded Poems
Other places of Interest where
you can read TomÕs work
At Rope and
Wire Magazine where 50 of TomÕs Stories can be found
At Pocol Press (Order
form for From the Quickening)
At Press 53
