Joseph A. Callan

I am the proud father of four children that would make a billionaire jealous and the grandfather of two darling little girls, all of whom make me think that God made a mistake in thinking I was someone He owed, big. Which, if you’re in that position of mistaken identity, well, sometimes it works out fairly well.

I live with my loving wife of 38 years, Mary Eileen (her friends call her Mel). The two of us still rattle around in the “homestead” in upstate New York, because, though we talk about it, we just can’t seem to downsize. The kids have moved out, but there are so many memories here.

I come from a large Irish family of very talented people in music, or art, or poetry, or an alacrity for communion with nature and animals. I chose to become a carpenter forty years ago and still find it fulfilling. My mother loved the arts and song, my father loved literature. He could quote Shakespeare at the most appropriate times to our amusement. In his mellifluous voice, he would wring the last drop of enchantment from Grimm’s Fairy Tales for our bedtime stories.

It’s not easy to make your mark in a family like that, not that I was intentionally trying to, but I always knew I could spin a good yarn. One fortuitous evening, not too long ago, I ran into a gentleman named Paul Bagdon, author and writing teacher. He must have seen something in me because, despite my early fiascos, he never gave up on me. Under his tutelage I was able to complete my first novel. Fado‘

A couple years later I joined an additional writing group and was pretty busy most evenings after I had put my hammer down from my day job and had put the kids to bed. I wrote and wrote and read and read and wrote. Not as hard as stepping out rafters high up, I thought. I was wrong, writing is just as hard. Seeing a home or addition I completed, is always a good thing, but as time went on and I continued to write, I discovered that a perfectly turned phrase was as rewarding and more addictive.

The name, Fado’, by the way, means “long ago” in Irish.

Senchai is pronounced-- Senk eye