Frank Barone

Perhaps best known as a poet, Frank Barone also writes short stories with poetic touches both in word choice and rhythm. Retired after 37 years as an English teacher, Barone is now seen regularly at his favorite Starbuck's in San Diego working on a new poem and sipping a cappuccino.

To help his high school students understand the power of the short story genre, Barone initially penned the stories in Lilacs and other stories as models. As a frequent consultant on teaching writing, Barone first self-published these stories to share with other writing teachers and is now making them available to a wider audience as an ebook.

Some stories are autobiographical -- he did spend a special boyhood summer in upstate New York -- and others are clearly fictional like the startling "Vacation," an homage to Stephen King.

Barone continues to present on writing for the San Diego Area Writing Project but limits school workshops to his grandson's elementary class. His young grandson shares his love of reading and writing poetry.