Paul Summers Jr.
About
ABOUT ME
Coming from a poverty level background, engagement in the arts was not supported by my parents. This did not change, even as their hard work brought them to a higher socioeconomic status. I remember writing long poems on the cash register tape from my bus boy job in high school. I honestly never dreamed of committing to anything that couldn't promise to at least pay for my groceries and rent. By the time I graduated, my writing changed. I became a singer/songwriter. For the next 20 years I wrote songs that I performed for large and small audiences across the country. Then I became a dad.
I was fast approaching 40. The life I was living is not the kind an artist will ever boast about. Rife with drug and alcohol abuse, I had taken all the gifts bestowed by my talents and squandered them. Many bridges were burned, but most of all, I had set my dream ablaze minus the glory. When my daughter was born, I pushed myself hard to make a living wage and put and end to chronic substance abuse. The changes I needed to make were not handled in a timely manner. After four years of struggling, my daughter was taken away from me by her mom.
This was enough of shock to my reality to shake me from my disease. I am an addict. Today, I am an addict in recovery with 16 years of drug and alcohol free living. Today, thanks to a 12 step program, counseling, honest, open-mindedness, willingness, and belief in a Higher Power I choose to call God, I have become the man, father, husband, step-father, brother, son, uncle, and author I was intended to be. Today I work tireless on the craft I plan on mastering before I pass: the written word.
At 60, I have been blessed with many things to be grateful for. Mostly, I have been afforded an amazing opportunity to write my memoir. It is my belief that my life was spared from being another drug overdose statistic so that I could serve to save others by telling my story of recovery. It is my hope that the sacrifice my wife and I are making contribute to its validity and relevance. Only through sharing the commitment am I able to write as she lives in the trenches five days a week. I have returned to academia as a 'non-traditional' college student. I am a part time member of my church's worship team. I volunteer at my kids' schools and stay as active in their lives as their teen brains will allow. I am involved in my recovery community. And, I am my kids' dad.
Member of the following organizations:
AWP
PNWA
Willamette Writers
Non Fiction Authors Association
