Major influences: Good ones: my mother and her mother and father. Growing up in Mississippi, experiencing the  countryside, hot sun, animals and birds, creeks, rivers and fields. Huge setback:: a father who did no fathering.

Major spiritual influences: Krishnamurti, Buddhism, Taoism.

Major literary influence: Too many to list. Very early ones: L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Bouroughs, The Tom Swift series. Later: Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson. Eudora Welty. Currently learning from countless writers in literary journals.