We are confronted with a highly dysfunctional world, and we must not only make sense of it, but also find those shreds of hope that make each day new. I first started writing seriously in college at Wichita State University, choosing journalism for its promise of a weekly paycheck to calm those family members with a blue-collar orientation to life. After more than 30 years of seeing the incongruities of the world, I left daily journalism for the extended form that a specialty weekly could offer, and, in turn, returned to school for a master's in liberal studies degree with a concentration in English literature and composition so that I could teach writing, and expand my story-telling skills to the fiction realm.  My writing influences include Ernest Hemingway, for taking his background in journalism to his fiction writing, and Thomas McGuane for the strength of his descriptive language and the power of his offbeat characters and situations. As a journalist, I elicited from Dick Cheney that he wouldn't lose sleep over sending people into a politically volatile area to pursue oil; I made both future Secretary of State James Baker and Sen. Phil Gramm mad enough to ball up their fists and turn red by questioning their honesty, and I've been surrounded by armed federal agents to keep me out of a news conference. Do I have stories to tell.