Hackwriters

I have a story, “Uncle Pringle and the Scam Artist,” in the Oct 2009 issue of Hackwriters. The website is www.hackwriters.com

“A Year in Retirement”

My new self-published book, “A Year in Retirement” is out and available online via various websites.

First entry…

My name is Martin Green. I’m a retiree/free-lance writer living in Roseville, CA.

 

After retiring at the end of 1990, I began to write for a weekly “alternative” newspaper in Sacramento called The Suttertown News.   I did over 50 articles over a period of about three years before The Suttertown News closed its doors.   In mid-1991, I had a “personal experience” piece accepted by the Neighbors section of the Sacramento Bee.   Neighbors published weekly sections on events, places and persons in half a dozen or so localities in and around Sacramento.   I found out that Neighbors accepted free-lance pieces and, unlike the Sutterrtown News, also paid for them.   I went on to do over 150 pieces for Neighbors, until in 2004 it was subsumed by the Bee and stopped accepting free-lancers.

 

In 1998, I and my wife Beverly moved to a Del Webb retirement community, Sun City Roseville.   I did a number of Sun City pieces for the Press-Tribune, a local Roseville paper.   In 2000, I started writing for The Sun Senior News, a monthly paper mailed to all Sun City Roseville residences, over 3,000, and then to all Sun City Lincoln Hill residences, over 5,000.   I currently do two monthly features for the Sun Senior News, Observations (on everything and anything) and Favorite Restaurants (dining out being a favorite senior citizen activity).    I estimate that as of now I’ve done between 450 and 500 published pieces in my journalistic career and have earned over $20,000, so who says there isn’t big money in writing..

 

After retiring, I took a creative writing class at a local community college and had two short stories (and two poems) published in the college’s literary magazine.   I had a number of other short stories published in “little” or “senior” magazines.   About four years ago, I discovered that there were a lot of online magazines (e-zines) on the WWW to which you could submit fiction pieces just by e-mailing them, instead of typing a hard copy and mailing with a SASE as with regular magazines.   I promptly turned my attention to e-zines and now have over 150 published short stories in them.    My literary earnings are $15.   (I cashed the check but keep a copy, not framed).

 

Last year, 2006, I self-published “Collected Stories, Volume I,” a paperback of 53 stories and over 300 pages.   This year, I put out “Collected Stories, Volume II,” 36 stories, about 180 pages.   Next year I plan to put out a third, and possibly last, volume.   My original goal was to have 100 published stories.   This year I thought I’d stop at 150, but then number 151 was published so I’m going on, maybe to 200 stories, if the e-zines will keep printing them.

 

Both books of collected stories are available online at www.iUniverse.com, the publisher, as well as at a number of other sites, probably for a lower price, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Tesco. Naturally, I’d like anyone reading this to buy a book; or, as I still have some author’s copies of Volume II, send an e-mail to mgreensuncity@yahoo.com and maybe we can work out a deal.

 

Some personal notes: I have three sons, one living in Ireland, three grandsons, one wife (still) and two cats. I gave up playing tennis three times a week when I turned 75, but still play casually about once a week or so.   I now shoot pool three mornings a week, much easier on the knees.   I don’t like most of what I see nowadays, but this gives me lots of material for my Observations columns.