About the project: Inkshares is an Oakland publisher with an innovative model. Instead of their editors deciding what manuscript to publish, they let the public the decide. If I can sell 250 pre-orders by December 31, the book will be published. Thanks to all of you for reading and ordering a copy.

About the book: No Rush For Gold is the story of a musician as he journeys through life, absorbing inspiration from his surroundings, and searching for meaning and the reason he is a musician. Best friend to the protagonist is Estlin, a fine artist in his own right but struggling for the discipline to control his exploding emotions. On a walk we encounter Elsa, the protagonist’s neighbor who oftentimes sits on the step outside his window to listen to him play the piano and dreams of living on a boat. Then there is Weston and Emma, sharing a small house and going through the motions; Stella, a waitress who catches the protagonist’s affections; and finally Edson, a man of the streets and only when he is soaked in the rain one evening does he come to life and realize he has been neglecting his passions.

Golden Rushes is a story of a traveling musician who finds love through Zerron, a woman he meets one evening at a backyard party and a musician herself. Built around a series of love songs written in the style of early jazz standards, the book has its own soundtrack as each song evokes the feeling their love has reached at that particular point in the story.

No Rush For Gold and Golden Rushes give us the feeling of what it is to be an artist. Dragging inspiration from the people and the animals alike that surround us, music is ever in the air.

About the author: I was raised in Illinois and after many years of struggling with my writing, all the while bouncing around from one Midwestern town to another, I decided it was time to get away and write my first novel, No Rush For Gold. So I rounded up a very small amount of money and I went to my homeland of Bolivia to write it there where I knew I could live economically.

Some years later, I went to Argentina to write my second novel, Golden Rushes. I now live in California where I am at work on a couple of books that draw from my experiences abroad, Home I’ll Never Be and Go Look Lost.

No Rush For Gold and Golden Rushes are both a labor of love to all that I knew before I had the courage to venture abroad. And in South America and above all while in Bolivia writing them, I was productive and as happy as I have ever been.