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Believe Me…You Should Have Been There!

Forty-five true stories Tom swears actually happened: classroom pranks that went too far, vacations that fell apart, and a few conversations with police officers he'd rather forget. Read one out loud and somebody will insist you're making it up.

Time travel, twist endings, and short stories that don't end where you think. Sixteen years went into Talisman.

Schools, libraries, churches, community groups. Tom tailors every program to the room — and the kids who "hate poetry" laugh loudest.

Nine collections about aging, marriage, telemarketers, snacks and mud. Poems written for people, not for professors.

"Most people tell me poetry isn't for them. So I write about what we actually live: family, work, snacks, getting older — even a little mud."

Somewhere along the way a lot of us decided poetry was stuffy. Nine collections later, Tom keeps proving otherwise — for six-year-olds, teenagers, church congregations and grandparents alike.

Illinois, Caterpillar, Pennsylvania — and then, finally, full-time writing.

Tom spent his career in marketing, retired in 2016, and moved with his wife Peggy to Crossville, Tennessee, where he writes full-time. Fifteen books later he still signs every copy ordered here himself — and his daughter Emma co-wrote one of them.

Give your audience something they'll still talk about next week.

Tell Tom about your group — students, congregation, book club, community event — and he builds the program around them. The people who claim they don't like poetry are usually the ones smiling on the way out.