"My People: Crackers, Cow Hunters, Patriots, and Rebels" by Bob Amason
– hungry, poorly educated, gaunt, and tough as sinew
I should have remained blissfully ignorant of the generations who begat me.
Bob Amason is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who was a college professor for 25 years. A Florida Writer’s Association member, Bob writes under his pen name, Frank A. Mason. Bob’s works include historical novels and modern suspense novels. Two of his Journeyman Chronicles series on the revolutionary war are Amazon.com Best Sellers. His writing has been published in two anthologies, academic journals, and books. Bob lives in Florida with his overachieving wife, a professor who is the author of a series of children’s books.
Author’s Talk
Bob Amason
About 40 years ago, I stepped into a classroom as an instructor for the first time. I had an epiphany: I was meant to teach. That moment of reflection set my life’s course. Mark Twain said, “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” The month I retired from being a college professor, I immediately started writing historical novels. Why? I still wanted to teach. What better way to teach than to write stories? Thinking back over all those years as an educator, I realized that my teaching always included storytelling. Transitioning to a full-time storyteller was a natural evolution.
Writing stories offered the chance to share my life-long interest in military history. Ancestry research added to my stories. I discovered that my fifth great-grandfather, Stafford Somersall, was an 11-year-old militia man in 1779 when British regulars captured him at the fall of Fort Morris near Sunbury, Georgia. It was not difficult to imagine him, still a child, carrying a musket that was longer than he was tall. Stafford appears in my second Journeyman Chronicles book.
I continue to hone my writing craft. Using my pen name, Frank A. Mason, I have written three books in the Journeyman Chronicles series of the American Revolution, Journeyman: The Bridge, Journeyman: Heart of Tempered Steel, and Journeyman: Honor Fades Not. I also published a stand-alone historical novel, Four Women of the Revolution. I also authored two modern suspense novels: Blue-Green for the Grave and The Bronze-Wound Lament. As Bob Amason, PhD, I have contributed to two compilations of personal stories. I have plans for two other series and a screenplay. A friend jokingly said I need to get a life. No, this is my life.
Becoming a full-time author helped me to realize that I, too, am a journeyman: Military Officer, College Professor, Writer – always a storyteller. The journey continues.—Bob Amason
