lockwod

Some of the stories in this book involve baseball, a sport that has at times provided magic in the world. The final story is not fiction but a travel memoir of a 1983 baseball trip out of which grew the author’s sense of the game’s magic. Some are coming of age stories: a boy who receives words to treasure in his heart from a famous baseball announcer; a teenage carnival worker who finds his life with the House of David baseball team; a child’s unlocking of the mystery and magic of words. Other stories involve a variety of central characters and complications: an old man stuck in a nursing home with his childhood nemesis; a tire technician who becomes a dancing cowboy on Friday nights; a man whose irritating dog reflects both the love and dysfunction of his family. These stories and others make up this volume of seventeen stories (all but one published for the first time) by Walter Lockwood.

Walter Lockwood has five children (one deceased), eleven grandchildren, two great grandchildren, and lives in Grand Rapids with his wife Pam. He worked as professor of creative writing, literature, and film for many years at Grand Rapids Community College. Among his published or produced works are Jones Unbound (novel, Prentice Hall Inc.), The Green Room (novel, Chapbook Press), Drinking with Dead Friends (short stories, Chapbook Press), Open Door (100 year history of Grand Rapids Community College), Finnegan, Begin Again (HBO Feature Film, ACE award winner), Runaway Heart (CBS Movie of the Week), and Dyslexia, the Hidden Disability (PBS documentary).