When I sat down to my newly-assigned desk in the middle of the bustling and messy Springfield, Mass. offices of what was then called The Union-News, I was unaware that, diagonally across from me was a fellow reporter with whom I would go on to develop a long-term professional relationship.

Suzanne Strempek Shea, who became an award-winning author and writing instructor, would be the reason why I enrolled in the Bay Path University creative nonfiction MFA program she helped create. She’d also be the reason why I later became an instructor for that same program. She’d eventually blurb nearly every book of mine as I followed in her footsteps of leaving daily reporting and plunging into the worlds of writing and teaching.

I remain grateful for her willingness to carefully read and blurb my work, including this one she wrote for Louie on the Rocks:

A truly cautionary tale for anyone who worries for the welfare of a vulnerable elder, Louie on the Rocks reads like the real life that Meredith O’Brien chronicled so skillfully in her newspaper days. Here she presents both sides of the case for and against alcoholic, widowed retiree Louie Francis’ ability to run his own life, an existence also pocked by a drug-addicted girlfriend half his age who fills his need for companionship and MAGA-wear while emptying his bank account. Narrator Louie’s chapters are interwoven with those bearing the distinct voices and points of view of his gay daughter grieving her mother and trying to do the best for a surviving parent who returns only hatred, and his late wife, who watches from beyond while recounting her life and the parts she played in making both father are daughter who they’ve become, and might yet be. The story is further enriched by the character and characters of the author’s Central Massachusetts, and by her first-hand knowledge of small-town life and all its complexities.

Thank you Suzanne!