Having been born into a show-biz oriented family, Arlee has traveled a fair amount throughout North America and has had a number of unique experiences. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but throughout his childhood years his family moved to Pittsburgh, PA; San Diego, CA; Crown Point, IN; and Maryville, TN. Though his father held a regular day job, he was always in pursuit of the “big break” for the family juggling act. We worked fairs, circuses, night clubs, and corporate events, meeting celebrities and continually being around an interesting array of characters who worked in the entertainment industry.
In the early seventies, Arlee attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, starting with a major in Psychology, but switching to English after the first year. After several years of meandering course taking, his college career ended when he joined a touring magic stage show in 1975. For the next nearly two decades he was involved in a number of entertainment jobs, with the longest running engagement acting as manager of a touring theatrical production.
In the 1990’s Arlee settled down in the Los Angeles area with his three children so they could enroll in school and they could all lead more normal lives. For eighteen years he managed the west coast branch of a wholesale costume distribution company until the office shut down in early 2009. That’s when Arlee decided to take up writing as a career.
Arlee has been interested in writing since the third grade. Throughout his life he has written stories, poetry, and essays and collected ideas for book topics. His few attempts at submitting his works to national publications during college were met with rejection, although he did have articles published in newspapers and specialty magazines. In mid-September of 2009 he started his blog, which is his current writing focus.
He has recently completed his first novel, A DESERT PLACE, as his entry in the National Novel Writing Month challenge. In the immediate future Arlee will be polishing up this novel and shopping it around for publication. Also, he will be adding some additional material to a manuscript that his late father left him called AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NOBODY. This is a personal project that he plans to make available to relatives and other interested parties.
A bit about the novel:
A DESERT PLACE:
A novel which tells the story of a modern day Jonah who in trying to run away from God’s calling instead finds himself swallowed by an underworld organization of drug dealers and car thieves. In his attempt to escape the clutches of this evil monster, Joe Bloom realizes the catastrophic consequences of doing wrong and the redemptive powers of forgiveness and faith.
Synopsis: A Desert Place
Joe Bloom goes to the New Mexico ranch of an old friend whom he finds dead with a gunshot to the back. Waiting there for Joe is $350,000 and a mysterious satchel. Joe reflects upon his life and tries to solve the mysteries of his friend's death, the contents of the satchel, and the identity of a woman by the name of Rosalita.
A bit about the blog:
Tossing It Out
Since Arlee is a juggler, he has taken the theme of juggling words and phrases and ideas and tossing them out to his audience in hopes that they will toss it back to him. His blog is an eclectic mix of pop culture, human interest, controversial topics, and religion. His normal topic schedule begins with Bible studies on Sundays, exploring writing topics on Mondays, exploring pop culture and travel with reviews and feature stories on Tuesdays, the interviews and people stories on Wednesdays, which is his most populer segment, a mix of controversial debate topics on Thursdays, stories of the strange, mysterious, and scary on Fridays, and wrapping it up with a recap of the week and look ahead to what’s coming up with a bit of this or that thrown in on Saturdays. Arlee states, "More than anything I like to engage the reader to participate and I love for them to comment, whether good or bad. For me any comment is a good comment."
Thanks for visiting with us today, Arlee.
See you all in the postings
Elysabeth Eldering
author of the JGDS 50-state. mytery, trivia series
JGDS Blog
