After working for several years as a literary agent, and later as a high school teacher, I founded Schaffner Press, Inc. in 2001 here in Tucson, Az.

My original game plan was to publish or republish books of quality non-fiction that had gone out of print. The first title was SISTERS AT THE BRIDGE OF FIRE, a memoir by Debra Denker of her experiences in Afghanistan and Central Asia at the time of the Soviet occupation.

I also reprinted Barbara Guest’s biography of the poet Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), and Edward Butscher’s critical biography, SYLVIA PLATH: Method and Madness. In addition, I published THE LOST CHILDHOOD, Yehuda Nir’s astonishing memoir of his experiences as a jewish boy in hiding from the Nazis in Warsaw in WWII, during which he and his mother and sister had to survive by pretending to be Catholic. Both the Plath biography and Nir’s LOST CHILDHOOD have gone on to become backlist bestsellers for the press.

Following my love of music and jazz music and drumming in particular, I published THE ESSENTIALS FOR THE BE BOP DRUMMER by Artt Frank, a friend and musical associate of Chet Baker and many other greats of the jazz world of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s with whom I have had the honor of studying the almost lost art of be bop drumming.

This hybrid of memoir and instructional how-to book was the first original title I brought out, and from this connection, I had the opportunity to publish HOPE TO DIE: A Memoir of Jazz and Justice by Woody Woodward, a former heroin addict and jazz saxophonist who served time in both San Quentin and Folsom prisons.

I worked closely with Woody on this book, which he had been laboring over for two decades, and its publication was a source of great satisfaction to me and a fulfillment of a dream for him. Sadly, Woody died of diabetes in 2007, a year after the publication of his book, but he was able to enjoy the triumphant moment of its publication. Look for the ebook version of HOPE TO DIE which will be released by Schaffner Press in the coming months.

In 2007, I brought out my first hardcover and first original work of fiction, THE SNOW ANGEL by Michael Graham, a powerful look at inter-racial tensions and violence in a hardworking blue collar town and the cops involved in solving a tragic kidnapping case of a bi-racial child.

2008 saw the publication of FATHER MICHAEL’S LOTTERY, a novel told from the point of view of a doctor in an AIDS clinic in Southern Africa by Johan Steyn, which subsequently won the 2009 Nautilus Award Silver Medal for Humanitarian Fiction.

In 2009 I had the great pleasure of publishing two excellent new entries of the Schaffner Press list, DANCING AT THE RIVER’S EDGE: A Patient and Her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness by Alida Brill and Michael D. Lockshin, M.D. and the first novel, HUMPTY DUMPTY WAS PUSHED by Marc Blatte, both books which will be reprinted in trade paperback this year.

I was also privileged to have the rare opportunity last year to work with the National Book Award nominated author Katherine Dunn (whose works of fiction I have always deeply admired) on a non-fiction book, ONE RING CIRCUS: Dispatches from the World of Boxing, an anthology of her articles and essays on the sport of boxing which she has been writing over the span of thirty years.

Now, in 2010, I look forward to a great publishing year with the introduction on my list of two reprints by Bill Carter, an extraordinary rising star in the field of non-fiction and memoir. First out will be FOOLS RUSH IN, his account of his experiences as a humanitarian aid worker in Sarajevo during the Bosnian Civil War, to be followed by RED SUMMER, his memoir of the summers he spent on the crew of commercial salmon fishing boat in the remote Eskimo village of Egegik, Alaska.

The fall of 2010 will mark the long-awaited and much-anticipated publication of ACID CHRIST: Ken Kesey, LSD and the Politics of Ecstasy, Mark Christensen’s candid and revealing hybrid of memoir and biography that limns the life and times of Ken Kesey with that of his own hilarious experiences propelled by the books and antics of his freak-freely hero and litrary guru of the 60’s generation.

I look forward to further publishing adventures in the coming years as I always am on the lookout for extraordinary stories, whether fiction and non-fiction, told in a refreshing voice and style. While I continue to maintain the themes and mission statement of earlier years by publishing quality work with universal and important themes for the general reader, I am also looking to break the boundaries of traditional narrative forms in biography, memoir and fiction. I believe that, by continuing to challenge myself as a publisher and editor in finding new and unique ways to market these titles, I will continue to stay in the game and maintain the independent style so vital to serious publishing now and in years to come.