Ron LandsRon Lands grew up in a small East Tennessee town with a five generation Appalachian pedigree containing a host of farmers and preachers, but no writers or physicians. As he states, The first indication that I might break that mold was the day after Pesident Kennedy's assassination when, in an attempt to process that tragedy, I wrote a very bad poem and gave it to my second-grade teacher. His earliest interest in the medical profession occurred a year later after he developed appendicitis. As he recalls, A small-town general practitioner performed emergency surgery late one night without a specialist's consultation, abdominal CT scan or anything else considered standard today. I was enchanted by the whole process, the doctor who visited me at random times, the nurse who changed my bandage daily, and cleaned my fingertips with alcohol so I could feel the thick silk sutures. Over five decades later, now a semi-retired cancer doctor in Knoxville, Tennessee, he confides how he was drawn to that specialty because the art of medicine has remained relevant even as the science has unfolded in breathtaking waves. I still find myself writing to find clarity about my patients. Writing and medicine are my vocation and avocation, impossible to do one without the other. Ron Lands, a retired cancer doctor, lives and writes near his hometown in Tennessee. He is an MFA alumnus of Queens University of Charlotte. His short stories have been published in literary journals and his clinical vignettes and poems in the humanities sections of medical journals. He is the author of two poetry books, Final Path and the forthcoming A Gathering of Friends. This is his first book of fiction. Read More Read Less