ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
G. A. Schindler was born Gregory Allen Schindler in 1946 in Center Line, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. There he grew up with three brothers and a sister. His father, Walter, was a factory worker who sang in the Detroit Rackham Choir and was an avid gardener. Walter made extra money for the family selling plants and cut flowers at the Royal Oak Farmers Market. He often soloed in church and sometimes at weddings. His mother Anna, (94 and doing fine thank you--sharp as a tack and still walking about three miles per week), was active in civic affairs.
In 1970 he received a degree in education with an English major from Eastern Michigan University. Some time spent teaching English, journalism and creative writing in a Detroit area high school convinced Greg that teaching wasn't his calling, so he traveled to San Francisco. During three years in the bay area, he met and married his wife, Susanna. They celebrated their forty first anniversary in March of 2015. In the mid-seventies, the couple moved to New York City, nearer her family, and three years later they traveled to Michigan to settle down in Sterling Heights, near Detroit where they live today.
Mr. Schindler was a cab driver, apartment building manager, and locksmith in California and New York, then a social services worker seventeen years in Detroit. He went on to start a cab company from which he retired in 2012. He's quite proud to describe himself as "low man on the totem pole" in his family, where he has a "lowly" B. A., and his wife an M. A.. Their only child, Seth, has a Ph.D. and is a university professor in England.
Hybridizing daylilies and writing have been Greg's main hobbies. He inherited a love of gardening from his father, "but dad was far more diverse. I keep it simple and specialize. Each year I plant several hundred daylily seeds and once-in-a-while find a flower worth introducing."
He describes himself as "always a poet since high school, but not particularly prolific". He studied journalism in college and wrote articles and a column in the EMU school paper. He turned to songwriting in the eighties. Though satisfied that he authored some fine lyrics, he found no avenue for publication.
Since he retired, he's joined some writing groups and found more time and energy to spend on writing. He still writes poetry occasionally, but has turned more to prose. He feels that the quality of his prose has begun to catch up to that of his poetry.
Summer in the garden, winter at the computer and occasional travel, make him wonder how he ever found time for work.
I'm an optimist--literally a member of the Downtown Detroit Optimist Club. The vast majority of my writing is positive and much is humorous. I don't enjoy reading depressing books, nor do I write any. Too much of the newspaper is depressing. I read and write fiction to get away from a reality that's too often depressing. It isn't that I feel we should ignore everything negative in the world, just that we should spend little time thinking about negative things we can't change.
As a poet I most enjoy finding a new and exciting image then wording it just right. I try hard to keep it understandable for the majority of readers, though that can be difficult to gauge sometimes. Much of today's poetry is too difficult for most readers to understand. In my prose and my poetry I try to be ecological and not waste words. The readers time is valuable, as are the trees cut down to make a book. Back before I was writing much prose, I wrote a poem titled Ecological: Novelists spew gallons of ink/over oceans of paper/the way ruptured tankers spill crude./poets are ecological. That poem is on page 59 of my "Footprints" book (and inexplicably out of alphabetical order there)
I've always been quite creative, but never able to market any of my creations. I designed an excellent game, "Tisby", several years ago and wrote some very good songs back in the 70s and 80s, but was never able to figure out the entrepreneurial end of success. In 2006 I published "Footprints" and "Great Speckled Banana's Great Quest" to the extent that I had them copyrighted and I put together copies of them to sell.
I was most excited in 2014 when I learned of createspace, Kindle and smashwords, and I put together new editions of those two books to publish there. I then went on to finish "Love Is The Smile" and publish it there. "Shrugg, 1 Mile" came next and then "A Blaze A Glory" followed by "Timmy and the Hotdog Song". I'm hoping my good Kirkus review of "Shrugg, I Mile" is a harbinger of good things to come. Just about everyone who has read any of my books has enjoyed them, but getting people to read them hasn't been easy.
My wife says I have infinite patience and sometimes it seems so. The writing of a story, getting feedback, revising and editing take quite a while, but eventually the reward is beautiful success. Then I feel that the need to showcase that story in a book of equal quality. I've always liked graphic design, so designing the covers, though somewhat time consuming, is the most enjoyable step. The most tiresome, time consuming work is formatting the book and finally building this website. Both were learning experiences that often brought forth from me language I almost never use in my books.
G. A. Schindler was born Gregory Allen Schindler in 1946 in Center Line, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. There he grew up with three brothers and a sister. His father, Walter, was a factory worker who sang in the Detroit Rackham Choir and was an avid gardener. Walter made extra money for the family selling plants and cut flowers at the Royal Oak Farmers Market. He often soloed in church and sometimes at weddings. His mother Anna, (94 and doing fine thank you--sharp as a tack and still walking about three miles per week), was active in civic affairs.
In 1970 he received a degree in education with an English major from Eastern Michigan University. Some time spent teaching English, journalism and creative writing in a Detroit area high school convinced Greg that teaching wasn't his calling, so he traveled to San Francisco. During three years in the bay area, he met and married his wife, Susanna. They celebrated their forty first anniversary in March of 2015. In the mid-seventies, the couple moved to New York City, nearer her family, and three years later they traveled to Michigan to settle down in Sterling Heights, near Detroit where they live today.
Mr. Schindler was a cab driver, apartment building manager, and locksmith in California and New York, then a social services worker seventeen years in Detroit. He went on to start a cab company from which he retired in 2012. He's quite proud to describe himself as "low man on the totem pole" in his family, where he has a "lowly" B. A., and his wife an M. A.. Their only child, Seth, has a Ph.D. and is a university professor in England.
Hybridizing daylilies and writing have been Greg's main hobbies. He inherited a love of gardening from his father, "but dad was far more diverse. I keep it simple and specialize. Each year I plant several hundred daylily seeds and once-in-a-while find a flower worth introducing."
He describes himself as "always a poet since high school, but not particularly prolific". He studied journalism in college and wrote articles and a column in the EMU school paper. He turned to songwriting in the eighties. Though satisfied that he authored some fine lyrics, he found no avenue for publication.
Since he retired, he's joined some writing groups and found more time and energy to spend on writing. He still writes poetry occasionally, but has turned more to prose. He feels that the quality of his prose has begun to catch up to that of his poetry.
Summer in the garden, winter at the computer and occasional travel, make him wonder how he ever found time for work.
I'm an optimist--literally a member of the Downtown Detroit Optimist Club. The vast majority of my writing is positive and much is humorous. I don't enjoy reading depressing books, nor do I write any. Too much of the newspaper is depressing. I read and write fiction to get away from a reality that's too often depressing. It isn't that I feel we should ignore everything negative in the world, just that we should spend little time thinking about negative things we can't change.
As a poet I most enjoy finding a new and exciting image then wording it just right. I try hard to keep it understandable for the majority of readers, though that can be difficult to gauge sometimes. Much of today's poetry is too difficult for most readers to understand. In my prose and my poetry I try to be ecological and not waste words. The readers time is valuable, as are the trees cut down to make a book. Back before I was writing much prose, I wrote a poem titled Ecological: Novelists spew gallons of ink/over oceans of paper/the way ruptured tankers spill crude./poets are ecological. That poem is on page 59 of my "Footprints" book (and inexplicably out of alphabetical order there)
I've always been quite creative, but never able to market any of my creations. I designed an excellent game, "Tisby", several years ago and wrote some very good songs back in the 70s and 80s, but was never able to figure out the entrepreneurial end of success. In 2006 I published "Footprints" and "Great Speckled Banana's Great Quest" to the extent that I had them copyrighted and I put together copies of them to sell.
I was most excited in 2014 when I learned of createspace, Kindle and smashwords, and I put together new editions of those two books to publish there. I then went on to finish "Love Is The Smile" and publish it there. "Shrugg, 1 Mile" came next and then "A Blaze A Glory" followed by "Timmy and the Hotdog Song". I'm hoping my good Kirkus review of "Shrugg, I Mile" is a harbinger of good things to come. Just about everyone who has read any of my books has enjoyed them, but getting people to read them hasn't been easy.
My wife says I have infinite patience and sometimes it seems so. The writing of a story, getting feedback, revising and editing take quite a while, but eventually the reward is beautiful success. Then I feel that the need to showcase that story in a book of equal quality. I've always liked graphic design, so designing the covers, though somewhat time consuming, is the most enjoyable step. The most tiresome, time consuming work is formatting the book and finally building this website. Both were learning experiences that often brought forth from me language I almost never use in my books.
People sometimes ask why I write in several genres. I feel that writers should be ready and willing to go where a good idea takes them. What if I got an excellent idea suitable for a poem and I only wrote short stories? Should I waste a good idea by never using it, or try to bend it into a short story? If all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. If you write in only genre then you bend all your ideas into the form of that genre. It may work well for some people. For me really good ideas are too few and far between. I try to write a good idea in the genre it best fits.
Song writing was a bit different for me though. I went into it because I didn't see myself likely to make a living as a poet. I turned out to be a good lyricist, but couldn't find a way to market my songs.
Since I retired, I've joined some writing groups which have helped me improve my prose writing and inspired me to do more writing. There I sometimes get good ideas as well as feed-back, both of which are essential for my writing.
One of my other hobbies, besides writing, is hybridizing daylilies. I've been enjoying it about twenty years and introduced several of my creations. You can see my daylily web page on the Southern Michigan Daylily Society at http://www.midaylilysociety.com/greg-schindler.html
Song writing was a bit different for me though. I went into it because I didn't see myself likely to make a living as a poet. I turned out to be a good lyricist, but couldn't find a way to market my songs.
Since I retired, I've joined some writing groups which have helped me improve my prose writing and inspired me to do more writing. There I sometimes get good ideas as well as feed-back, both of which are essential for my writing.
One of my other hobbies, besides writing, is hybridizing daylilies. I've been enjoying it about twenty years and introduced several of my creations. You can see my daylily web page on the Southern Michigan Daylily Society at http://www.midaylilysociety.com/greg-schindler.html
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