Welcome to Story Road
Welcome to Story Road: “Speculative fiction — fantasy, sci-fi, horror — every 2nd and 4th Thursday. Personal essays on writing, faith, family, and the life I’ve lived, every other Thursday.”
Story Road is a meandering journey through this life in search of what is good, and true, and beautiful. A dose of original fiction twice per month, and an eclectic mix of stories, essays, and observations on a variety of topics — faith, family, history, science, art, nature, travel, AI, the end of the world, the meaning of life.
Who am I?
I’m Paul, a retired engineer and program manager who spent 38 years in the aerospace and defense industry. I’ve also spent a lifetime reading, writing, studying, teaching, and raising a family. One thing I’ve learned: storytelling is the most effective means of communication — whether in business, at church, or at home. Stories bring us together. Stories make complex things clear. Sometimes they remind us of things forgotten. And sometimes, they’re just fun.
We’re living in a polarized world. There’s no shortage of publishers chasing clicks with outrage and division. I’m not interested in that. I write about things that fascinate me: science, art, books, movies, faith, current events, culture, and history. I write about life — stories from experiences past and present. My goal is to write things that will make you think, smile, and maybe laugh.
I also write fiction in the fantasy genre. My work draws inspiration from Robert E. Howard’s adventure, C.S. Lewis’s moral imagination, and Neil Gaiman’s dark wonder. I’m currently developing The MacIntyre Saga — stories exploring the eternal battle between good and evil, set in a world where the supernatural breaks through into our reality.
Short stories have long been something I dearly love. Many of my favorite authors — Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Edgar Allan Poe — are masters of the form. The ability to take you somewhere else in a few pages and leave you satisfied is something I aspire to. All I can promise is they’ll be short, and they’ll be stories. And I hope you have as much fun reading them as I have writing them.
What you’ll get:
I publish once per week, on Thursday. The 2nd and 4th Thursday you’ll receive original speculative fiction — fantasy, sci-fi, horror — in the form of short stories, or excerpts from novels and novellas in progress. On alternate Thursdays, I publish personal stories and anecdotes from past and present, along with occasional essays on a variety of topics that interest me.
Think of Story Road as sitting around a campfire, burning marshmallows, telling stories, and having real conversations. We don’t have to agree on everything (or anything), but we can talk about it anyway. You know, like we used to.
I’ll be out on the road with my wife, traveling in our 1997 campervan, along with our New Mexico rescue mutt, Peanut. I’m always in search of the perfect milkshake, and the next great story. I hope to meet up with you on the Story Road.
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