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Walt Shiel

Walt Shiel

About

Although born in Michigan, Walt Shiel was raised across the US and around the world as an Air Force “brat.” He started school on the Pacific Island of Guam during the Korean War and finished high school in France during the Vietnam War. Shortly after graduation, Charles DeGaulle kicked all American forces out of the country, but Walt swears it had nothing to do with him.

Subsequently, he earned a BSEE degree from Michigan State University, a commission and pilot wings from the Air Force, and the hand of a charming young woman named Kerrie. Walt spent 20 years as an Air Force pilot (including time in the Michigan Air National Guard) and logged 4,000 military and civilian flying hours.

As a civilian engineer, he worked at Northrop on the B-2 bomber program and at Lockheed Martin on the F-16, F-35, and F-22 fighter programs. He retired from Lockheed Martin in 2004. Walt is currently the publisher and managing partner at Slipdown Mountain Publications LLC.

Since 1990, Walt has written for magazines in the US, England, and Australia and authored five books -- military aviation history, historical fiction, and short stories.

He and Kerrie have two daughters and two grandchildren and live on a 40-acre Michigan farm populated with horses, cats, dogs, and an abundance of wildlife.

A Shadow in Yucatan

A Shadow in Yucatan

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Description

<p>A mythical jewel of a story… A true story told on a beach in Yucatan, A Shadow tells Stephanie's story but it was also the story of the golden time. Its nostalgia sings like cicadas in the heat.</p><p>An American ‘Under Milkwood’, this distilled novel of the Sixties evokes the sounds, music and optimism on the free-wheelin streets and parks of Coconut Grove. You can hear Bob Dylan still strumming acoustic; smoke a joint with Fred Neil; and Everybody’s Talkin is carried on the wind.</p><p>Stephanie, a young hairdresser living in lodgings finds herself pregnant. Refused help from her hard Catholic mother in New York, unable to abort her baby, she accepts the kindness of Miriam, her Jewish landlady, whose own barren life spills into compassionate assistance for the daughter she never had.</p><p>The poignancy of its ending, its generosity and acceptance, echoes the bitter disappointment of those of us who hoped for so much more, but who remember its joy, and its promise, as though untarnished by time.</p>

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Reviews

<p>It's a testament to the high quality of these short stories that I could easily imagine several of the being published by Ellery Queen. Also, there are several science fiction stories that would be of interest to the Asimov magazine. Another measure of how good these stories are is the fact that we identify with the characters even when they are doing something that most of us have never done, like flying an airplane. We all do different things, but human emotions are coomon to all of us. This would be a good book to put on your nightstand if you are the sort of person who reads in bed...This is the sort of book that you could give as a gift with great confidence that the recipient of your gift would like it...I have no idea if Shiel plans to continue writing short stories, although I would encourage him to do so. I do say I'm looking forward to any future books he may write. --Andrew Grgurich, <em>Marquette Mining Journal</em></p>