Ralph P. Vander Heide

I believe it was Thomas Mann who said he experienced a feeling of satisfaction, perhaps pleasure in achievement while creating a literary work. After all the finished piece is just that. It is finished. I concur with Mann's explanation.I might even add that writing is "tortuous fun," if I may coin a term. I have always enjoyed writing be it stories or newspaper articles. However, my careers as a teacher in high schools and colleges, teacher training, work with the evaluation of schools in the USA and internationally required academic writing. Now in retirement I can return to creative literature. My wife and I jointly wrote over a period of many years, CHRIS AND LOUISA, a very well researched history of 125 years of Mormons, polygamy and the USA. I next authored GERMAN LEAVES based on research I did for my doctoral dissertation. It is bilingual in that all the German is translated, but the original German passages remain. The DEUTSCHE BLATTER (GERMAN LEAVES) was an anti-Nazi magazine founded by two exiled Germans, Udo Rukser and Albert Theile. Their story is a fascinating one.

I speak (and taught) Dutch, Spanish, German (Ph.d.), some French and a little BAHASA (Indonesian)along with weak, Spanish-reliant Italian and smatterings of other tongues.

We have conducted forums and readings aboard cruise ships and enjoyed very good reviews of both books. Furthermore, the largest local,radio station,

88.1 FM KWCR Weber State University in Ogden UT interviewed Ralph for 45 minutes.Recently a second interview took place: xlibris podcasts at TogiNet Radio under my name or "German Leaves.