Dan Marvin’s Blog

Dan Marvin's Cat

Hi!  So you want to know all about me, eh?  I live in Central Kentucky with my wife, son, daughter, dog, and horses.  Oh yeah, and the cat.  I’m not sure why the cat doesn’t count.  If you have outside cats you know what I mean.  They’re part of the family but you know if they got a better offer they’d be gone.  I mean, Thunder likes you to pet him but it’s completely on his terms.  Unlike dogs, cats don’t really come when they’re called unless they’re really in the mood.  Thunder shows up on his schedule, flops where you can’t conveniently avoid him, and then allows himself to be pet until he’s done.  When he’s done, he lets you know by scratching/biting you until you toss him bodily across the garage floor.  Not that I’ve done that, but if I had, it would have been the only effective way to keep him from biting you.

My wife says she doesn’t like the cat.  She teases my son about wishing Thunder was dead.  I’m almost sure it’s teasing.  It seems like teasing.  She wouldn’t really want the cat dead would she?  Nah, she feeds it and stuff, I’m thinking it’s mostly just teasing.  We’ll go with that. 

This is where I had ended my ‘about’ section, but it left people wanting more.  So, I’m adding the following extremely interesting information for those of you who weren’t interested in the cat.

I have been writing stories since I was quite young.  My wife is from Texas, she’d have some way of saying ‘quite young’ that sounds more charming than that, like knee high to a grasshopper or something clever.  Not me, I’m a yankee boy and we say things like ‘quite young’ and leave it at that.  I guess that’s why our iced tea isn’t as good, we’re too impatient.  So as I was saying, quite young ago I started writing and really never stopped right up to this very second.  Much of what I wrote starting about 1986 or so was on a computer.  That meant that I had hundreds of stories polluting my hard drive and they were just sitting there.  “Why not compile them,” a masochistic voice inside my head asked.  “You can turn them into a book and then send it to agents and publishers who will either ignore you or send you notes that say things like ‘not for me’ and ‘no thank you’ and ‘get bent.’  That will be good fun!” 

Oddly enough, I listened to that voice.  Oh yes, how I compiled.  I edited and compiled and had a beer and then compiled and edited some more until Briefs for the Reading Room emerged, ready for the world.  Now it’s out and in circulation and you’re here and I’m trying to sell it to you.  There are other books, of course.  Books like Thomas Granger which sit idly by while the hysteria over Briefs subsides.  It’s available somewhere online, I dare you to find it.  I’m also working on A Change of Briefs for the Reading Room which has some samples and its own tab.

Apart from writing silly stories and the occasional novel, I also write for Bluegrass Dog Magazine and The Lulu Book Review and technical articles for work.   So, all that writing from the time I was belly high to a wild sow (I made that one up, maybe I can be Texan some day too) has finally paid off in this interesting hobby.  Thanks for stopping by, and did I mention I have a cat?

Dan Marvin - April 2009