"Nothing a Little Tobacco and Mother's Spit Won't Cure" by Bob Amason

We all know our mothers have magical powers.

In Mom’s day, if you were not bleeding and could walk, you were perfectly fine.

Award-winning author Bob Amason is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant colonel who was a college professor for 25 years. A Florida Writers Association member, Bob writes historical and modern suspense novels under his pen name, Frank A. Mason. His Journeyman Chronicles series on the American Revolutionary War won the 2023 Florida Writers Association Gold Royal Palm Literary Award, Florida’s most prestigious writing prize. His latest is The Sunlit Silence series on WWII in the Air. Bob’s writing has been published in six anthologies, prestigious academic journals, and books. He is president of the St Augustine, Florida, Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and is a National SAR Museum Board member. Dr. Bob Amason lives in Florida with his overachieving wife, a research 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 allowed me to share my lifelong 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 four books in the Journeyman Chronicles series of the American Revolution. I was honored by the Florida Writers Association with the Gold Royal Palm Literary Award for Heart of Tempered Steel, Book Two of the Journeyman Chronicles.  

Book of the Year for 2025 from the Florida Writers Association

I have also published a stand-alone historical novel, Echoes of Liberty: A Novel of the Triumph of Four Women amidst the American Revolution, and two modern suspense novels: Blue-Green for the Grave and The Bronze-Wound Lament. I recently published the fourth novel in my Sunlit Silence World War II aviation series: On Silvered Wings. I am humbled to say it became an Amazon Best Seller the day after it was published. Writing as Bob Amason, PhD, I have contributed to six 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