Dale Dapkins is a 1968 psychology graduate of the University of Rochester. He lived in Turkey for two years with the Peace Corps making a movie for the Turkish Tourism Ministry in the late sixties. After apprenticing to an Armenian Oriental Rug dealer, he became an independent antique oriental rug expert/dealer. His first novel American Broccoli and Dr. Breast was published by Nefyn and Shaw in 1988. He won the Grand Prize in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition in 1999 . . . a blind read with thousands of entries from all over the world. And he won it again the following year. Also he has won several money prizes in Writer’s Digest and other competitions. In addition, he is a painter with several museum shows, including a one-man show at the Key West Art and Historical Society in 2006. Over twenty-four of his paintings are found in corporate collections worldwide, including eight at Zurich-Re in New York City’s One Chase Manhattan Plaza.