Howard Denson writes as the Wild-Eyed Moderate as he cuts through the hysteria of the right and the frenzy of the left. GUNFIGHT WITH A WILD-EYED MODERATE is a collection of his essays, columns, and sketches. They focus upon the peculiar, as when a gorilla in a zoo is transfixed by the sight of a man in a gorilla suit making a commercial, to the serious, with a look back at Socrates' execution. Several essays provide feedback to aspiring writers who may be having trouble with dialogue, dialect, punctuation, point of view, etc. One essay is "Encountering Ray Bradbury." Other essays explore racial relations, the consequences of the bombings in Birmingham, and America's debt to its immigrants.
About the Author: Howard Denson says he changed schools about twenty times before he graduated and moved from Jasper, Ala., to Columbus, Miss., to Northern Alabama, to Mobile, to Key West, to Gadsden, to Vidalia, Ga., and then Pensacola and Norfolk. Fortunately, this was during the Golden Age of Radio, and he was given stability by Fibber McGee and Molly, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Amos and Andy, and many others. With TV in the 1950s, he watched live performances and marveled at the antics of Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, plus Ernie Kovacs, Phil Silvers, and Lucy. With only two TV stations, he sat through all of the rituals of the Republican and Democratic conventions, back when the conventions actually meant something. His father and paternal grandfather worked in the circulation departments of newspapers, so he gravitated toward student newspapers at Pensacola Junior College and Florida State University, as he worked part-time for weekly and daily newspapers as a "flunky journalist." After graduation, he worked as a journalistic dogsbody for The Birmingham News during the dying decade of "hot metal days." Bored, he went to graduate school at the University of Southern Mississippi and obtained a teaching position at what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville. As a teacher, he continued to write and became deeply involved in the Florida First Coast Writers' Festival, doing articles for newsletters, judging contests in prose and poetry, and moderating panels. His work as the union president off and on for twelve years meant he was writing op ed pieces, letters to the editor, and newsletters for the faculty federation. Much of this writing was ephemeral, but here and there he found a piece worthy of being collected and shared. He has been married to Michele Boyette (a/k/a She Who Knows All) for nearly thirty-nine years. Their children all bark or meow.