DUEL WITH A WILD-EYED MODERATE (101,000 words) is a collection of essays and columns by Howard Denson, a former "flunky journalist" for several Southeastern U.S. newspapers and a long-time instructor of composition, literature, creative writing, and the humanities at what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville. He also has spent about a dozen years as president of a faculty union. In DUEL, he offers humor, "silly nonsense," and even serious advice for Jeffersonian Activists (i.e., those inspired by Saul Alinsky). For writers interested in astrology, he puts on his Occult Cap and conjures up monthly insights for ink-slingers. In "Is It Autophagia?" he explains how socially caged humans can, in despair, turn upon themselves. "Pee-Pee, Poo-Poo, Toot-Toot" discusses Hollywood's excremental vision in films designed for fifteen-year-olds. The collection opens with a piece supposedly written by an aged cowboy star, Brewster Barlow. From his retirement home in Mississippi, Barlow describes how he and the author were students at performing arts schools led by Bert Lahr and then Jimmy Durante. Barlow's tales are to be taken with a grain of salt and a jigger of Jack Daniels.
About the Author: As a newspaper-Navy brat, Howard Denson moved from one part of the South to another. A native of Jasper, Alabama, he has been living in Jacksonville, Florida, since the administration of Saint Richard the Reluctant Confessor. He writes novels (historical, contemporary, mystery, and science fiction), nonfiction (the "Wild-Eyed Moderate" series), fables for adults, etc. At what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville, he taught composition, literature, and creative writing, plus humanities courses in the ancient world and Middle Ages, the Renaissance to the modern world, art appreciation, American art and culture. He was closely involved in a town-and-gown writers' conference, the Florida First Coast Writers' Festival, and attended similar conferences at Samford University, Birmingham-Southern College, the University of Florida, and especially at St. Petersburg's excellent Florida Suncoast Writers' Conference. He has been an editor and/or contributor to The State Street Review, The Penchant, The International Journal of Elvisology and the Elvisian Era, The Write Stuff, The FCCFF Update, and Kassandra's Kitchen. He helped run and judge contests in novels, short fiction, poetry, and plays. He and his smarter bride of forty-one years Michele Boyette currently have several four-legged children: the meowers, Eddie, Billy, Mercutio, Wally, Frieda, Amber, and Miss Peepers; and the barkers, Miss Daphne and Mr. Darcy. He has a website at http: //howarddenson.webs.com.