Jay Squires

My Twitter account identifies me as “a writer, a salesman, an optimist, a dreamer,” and adds: “may the four always cohabit and produce wondrous progeny.” Each of the first two identifies a blood-and-bone human being, living in the real world who works very hard at being honest and authentic—but, who is still evolving in these areas. The last two (“optimist” and “dreamer”) are foundational qualities in my life. They keep a fire crackling under me that hopefully fuels the writer … and the salesman, whose hat each of us is hard-wired to wear. Sandwiched somewhere between writing and selling, I attended college and even tried my hand at selling high school kids on why they should love learning and reading and writing. That was a brief stint. Whether teaching failed me or I it, I don’t know. You’d have to ask the kids—though many might be doddering by now, and some dead. Still, experientially, it is a part of me.

I have been writing my entire adult life, mostly freelancing. My short story, “The Mumph Legacy” appeared in The Timber Creek Review, while my novella, “The Uneven Zen of Time” has appeared in the Fabula Argentea Journal, followed by two anthologies, one of them a Fifth Anniversary Anthology of the best fiction they’d published over that span.

I am married, living with my dog, Sirius, in Bakersfield, California, and separately from my wife.