Today my wife Ann and I live with our cats, Dolly and Bailey, high on a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay. Prior to beginning my writing career, I was a marketing consultant, senior corporate executive, university adjunct faculty, corporate board member, community volunteer, and an officer in the U.S. Army. Then at a time when most people are retiring, I began this new vocation as a novelist. Here's how it happened.

My father Ben was born in the Ukraine amidst the worst of the Russian Tsar's bloody 1905 anti-Jewish riots - pogroms. Shortly after, my grandfather Max escaped with his family to America. A hundred years later, I returned to the Ukraine. I paid my respects at a tombstone honoring the victims of the 1905 pogroms and stood in the square where the Nazis in 1941 rounded up thousands of Jews and marched them off to be executed. Had my grandparents not left Russia when they did, I might well have died in a square just like that one.

My yearning to connect with these grandparents I never knew arose in those moments. Writing novels seemed to be the only means for me to satisfy that passion. This led to my first book, Goliath's Head, then to A Fine September Morning, Lara's Shadow and finally to Odyssey of Chaos. The last one was inspired by my Greek cousins on my mother’s side. They survived the Nazi occupation of Athens hiding in the hills in a shepherd’s cellar and fighting in the Greek resistance. Some other cousins didn’t survive, lost in the Holocaust.

I was more than a little surprised by the excellent reception of each of my novels. The wide audience of readers were a mix of both Jews and non-Jews keenly interested in the chronicles of Twentieth Century Jews, from persecution to tragedy to triumph. Most were from the United States, but a significant number of readers came from other parts of the world too.

Lately I have turned to writing short stories for publication in literary journals, such as the Avalon Literary Review, Evening Street Review, and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. These stories are universal, dealing with human nature and how we respond to critical moments that shape who we are. Though I had no such intention, looking back I see that underlying each of these stories are the tangled relationships that constitute the lives of each of us. Some of those relationships are good, some are bad, some are fleeting, and some are enduring. Regardless, each leaves its mark and changes who we are.

Writing brings me enormous satisfaction. Big rewards come when I give a presentation and see how people react, or I receive a piece of fan mail or get a good review on Amazon. Every reader brings a little bit of their own unique person and imagination to the reading and interpretation of a story. They see the stories I write through their own eyes and experiences, not mine. Their appreciation keeps me plugging away, trying to get better at it. Thank you.

Alan Fleishman