The Parting
A Story of West Point on The Eve of the Civil War
(optioned for a television series)
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Factually based, The Parting is a flashback story about the 50-member West Point Class of 1861 during its last year at the academy before the band of brothers is undone by disunion and confronts one another at the First Battle of Bull Run.
Framed between mid-August 1860 and late April 1861, this period-piece love story between John Pelham from Alabama and Clara Bolton from Pennsylvania is played out against the issues of slavery and states' rights, the Democrat and Republican parties, the abolitionists of the North and the fire-eaters of the South, the contentious election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession of Southern states, the resignations of Southern officers and cadets, the posturing intended to avoid war, and the surrender of Fort Sumter that dashed all hopes for peace.
Eben Kruge: How "A Christmas Carol" Came to be Written
(optioned for a feature film)
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What is it that propels so many of us annually to re-experience the ghost story of Christmas?
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And what of the man, Charles Dickens, who penned the story in 1843—the writer, husband, father, friend, businessman, and social activist? What persons, events, and circumstances framed his past and present when he sat down to write the timeless classic? A fable that in many ways has changed the way the world views and celebrates Christmas.
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Factually framed, Eben Kruge, takes us into the life of Dickens, already world-famous, at the end of his five-month trip to America in 1842, having been invited to visit the new country by Washington Irving. Making a final stop at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and In need of a character to enliven his imagination, he learns of a most unusual man, Eben Kruge, and determines to meet the man and know his story.
Charlie's Ashes
A Greatest Generation Story
(to be optioned for a feature film)
At a Thursday morning Crispy Warriors veterans group breakfast at Crackings in Destin, Florida, Sam Lombardo (100) learns that Charlie Geiger, 93 and a member of his platoon in the Battle of the Bulge, has passed. He's had enough of waiting his turn to go. Whether it was the little girl with the pink Eiffel Tower applique on her white T-shirt or the rich cabernet sauvignon from Saint Emilion, he didn't know, but he was decided. He would think and go on the offense, just as he had in the battles before and after crossing the Rhine into the heart of Hitler's Germany.
But first, he would lay the gauntlet squarely before his Crispy Warrior buddies, John Beard (101), Bill McCowen (93), and Joe Gossen (93), the three of them, like himself and Charlie, residents of Patriot House Assisted Living Facility in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
