I was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1943, the youngest of identical twins with four older siblings.

I grew up in Tupelo and Hattiesburg and later lived in Nashville, Tennessee and New York. In New York I worked for an organization called Everything for Everybody that provided housing, meals and clothing for the poor. There I met my wife, Gabi. We later moved back to my home state of Mississippi where we founded a similar organization called Persons Service. We also published an alternative weekly newspaper called Persons and a literary and arts magazine called Mississippi Arts & Letters — until we went bankrupt.

In 1988 we moved to Olympia, Washington. We love it here.

I am an artist and writer. My paintings have been widely shown throughout the Pacific Northwest. However, since having open heart surgery in 2002 I have stopped painting and I now focus my creative work on writing.