Terry Dean

Terry Dean writes. His first play was produced when he was in the third grade. It was performed by his class in front of a group of scary parents. His first honest-to-God sale was a greeting card. The next sale was a play - “Stormless Vows” - which was produced in Los Angeles, in front of scary agents, scarier reviewers and a real audience. The theater received the script only because his wife had grown tired of cleaning “around” a pile of unread scripts. She told him to mail off “at least three scripts.” He mailed two - one was rejected, the other stuck and was produced. After that, he wrote screenplays. More than a dozen were optioned by Hollywood producers. (Again, his wife pushed the scripts out the door.) He finally settled into a life as an editor for newspapers and newsmagazines. She couldn’t complain about a pile of newspapers because the papers were kept in the morgue at the office. “Ha! Take that, crazy woman who cleans too much!” But - and this is what this rambling has been leading up to - only recently has she discovered he has books he’s written on his computers and some on paper, stuffed away in locked filing cabinets. The sneak! You know what’s coming, right? She’s making him publish the books. So before you write a nasty review aimed at the author, consider aiming it at his wife. If you happen to enjoy the stories, you can praise her instead of him. If it weren’t for his wife, he’d be just a guy hunched over a keyboard. He’d be typing somewhere in the Midwest with three dogs and two cats. Oh, and without her, he would be very hungry.