Carl D Jenkins
I am a writer. But, I am rather rusty when it comes to web-design, and have not done it since before the advent of smart phones and tablets. Let's start by exploring some of my identities, shall we?
Writer
I primarily write fiction, although I have as yet not tried to get any of that published. Most readers would likely consider me to us a multi-genre style, but, for the sake of simplicity's sake, let's narrow that to Social Fiction, since most of my works center on at least one aspect of living in today's world. Life is not clean and neat, and neither are my characters or their lives. I write fiction for myself first, so it's an easy thing to sit down and start the creation process for these stories.
I also write the occasional non-fiction piece. I'd write more, but it's not really where my passion lies, so I need a bit of external motivation when it comes to deciding that a piece is worth putting time into. I guess, I write non-fiction for others, so I need to see that others want the work to exist before I set out on it. The counselor inside of me is more often asked to provide non-fiction activity in one-on-one or workshop form, so I don't often stop to write it down for a larger audience until I'm asked.
Nevertheless, I have two works of nonfiction that can actually be purchased in the mainstream world. The first started out as a thesis and focuses on homeless service provision in Appalachia. The second is a treatment on facing unemployment. See the links below for more information and help finding them for purchase.
The Unemployment Roller Coaster was the second book I published.
It was the result of a rather surprising hard time in my life when the funds for my career dried up, leaving good people to make hard choices that affected my future. I wrote it while facing unemployment myself, and it draws on my own experiences as well as a mishmash of conversations I had had with various clients as part of the larger reasons that brought them to my former desk.
To a degree, this work constituted creative non-fiction because it depends largely on a variety of situations many people shared with me. None of those situations were documented, and most of them were coalesced into primary themes that I was able to draw upon as I faced the situation myself.
This book is not designed to help you magically avoid unemployment, but it will be mentally useful for those of you who either find yourself there unexpectedly, or are sharing life with those you must help to face the journey. It is full of tips to help you minimize the damage and maximize your survival time, all while keeping your head and coming out the other side better than you went in.
This book can be purchased at:
https://www.createspace.com/5969283
https://www.amazon.com/Unemployment-Roller-Coaster-Keeping-Yourself/dp/1523794194/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1467402980&sr=8-2&keywords=Carl+D+Jenkins
You can now order directly from myself using PayPal.Me/CDJenkins/13 and providing a valid shipping method and means of contacting you for any required follow up. This covers the cost of one book, any sales tax that applies, and shipping to anywhere in the continental US.*
Contact me ahead of time for multiple copies, locations outside of this region, or special instructionsas S/H may change.
About Purchases from Carl D Jenkins
All copies purchased directly from this author will be signed unless the purchaser specifically requests otherwise.
Reasonable inscription requests will be considered and usually honored, but will not be guaranteed.
Special instructions should be emailed at the same time as payment to carlwriter@hotmail.com, and a flag of some kind in the Paypal memo will be appreciated.
All shipments should go out within three business days of payment confirmation, with an intent to do so sooner.
Don't forget to give me a valid shipping address and means of responding to requests. Paying through PayPal is quick and efficient, but it does not ensure good communication by itself.
Appalachian Rural Homelessness was the first book I published.
It is a non-fiction exploration of how the treatment of homeless service provision has changed through the years within the Appalachian Region of the United States in general, and within Watauga County, North Carolina more specifically.
It compiles the first-hand accounts of myself and various other service providers together with statistics, assorted government documentation, and interviews to paint a picture of how those we now identify as homeless are receiving services and overcoming life's obstacles as compared to other times and places.
This work started out as a thesis for my graduate work in Appalachian Studies, and is available in assorted libraries in two versions of that format. This edition stands alone in a more transportable format with cover art by a talented photographer by the name of Dustin Chambers.
You can buy the book at the following locations:
https://www.createspace.com/5922471
https://www.amazon.com/Appalachian-Rural-Homelessness-Watauga-Carolina/dp/1519731981/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467402980&sr=8-1&keywords=Carl+D+Jenkins
You can also order directly from me using PayPal.Me/CDJenkins/20 and provide me with a valid shipping address and means to follow up. This will cover the cost of the book, any sales tax, and S/H within the continental US.*
*Contact me for multiple copies ahead of time, or with locations outside of the region as S/H will change.
Yours truly is featured in a brand new anthology called A Journey of Words, by Scout Media.
My fictional account exploring just what killed the dinosaurs follows the janitor of a government agency tasked with answering some of humanities unsolved mysteries as he stows away on the misnamed time probe, Jurassic Station.
From there, our unwitting hero tries to survive in the Cretaceous period while avoiding the scrutiny of those who are actually supposed to be on the mission, all for the sake of a grab at glory via a journal mislaid in time.
Things could go wrong, and they will, in Jurassic Station. You can order it from:
http://www.scoutmediabooksmusic.com/of-words-series/ -paperback or digital editions.
Of course, you can find it at Amazon*, order it from your local bookstore (or better yet, demand they keep it in stock), or get them from me personally using PayPal.Me/CDJenkins/25. $25 covers the cost of one book, any sales tax, and shipping and handling to any standard mailing location with the continental US**.
*Online retailers have set the release date for the paperback as October 1st, 2016. The publisher and many of the 35 authors already have quantities in stock.
**For multiple copies, extra-territorial shipping locations, or special handling needs, please contact me ahead of time, as S/H may change.
If you love a good short story, you may also want to check out last year's anthology, A Matter of Words. You can revisit some of the AJOW authors as well as a number of others. I am not one of the authors in this book and do not keep them in my own stock.
Hobbies
Just for kicks and giggles, and to fill in the missing quadrant of this page as it stands now, I'll give a run-down of my hobbies. I don't talk about myself much, so when I'm asked this question, I usually flounder and essentially brush it off. Maybe I'll do better when I'm asking myself.
Reading is a big one. What writer doesn't like to read? I read mostly fiction unless I'm researching or studying something. I tend to read things that are similar to what I'd write, or that touch on subjects that interest me. That doesn't necessarily narrow it down that much. I'm not much for romance or young adult, and works that depend too much on profanity or bad grammar with no purpose except self-gratification won't likely get read.
I also like hiking. Not the let's hang on to the side of a cliff by our fingernails hiking, and not the walking around a suburban neighborhood or grass-infested flatland type of hike either. I want the hike itself to be a mild workout, preferably with some scenery, but without much chance of accidental death by misstep or by over-applied fertilizers and pesticides. So, mountains, sea, new cities, all good, but leave the Frisbees and footballs at home.
My newest hobby is scuba diving. I'm only into mid-to-upper double digits so far, and more than half of that has just been the lake and quarry, excuse-to-get-in-the-water sort of excursions, but I've seen a few reefs and shipwrecks too. Where's that place where the park floods every year? I'd kind of like to see that during the dry season and then again during the wet. I think it would be fun to swim down to the benches containing statues I've been able to set beside on a hike.
Proofreading
Editing and proofreading is primarily something I do for friends and family with their own projects, but I'll occasionally take on a project for others who need help. I struggle with giving up control of my own work, so this type of project needs to be well defined for me to consider taking it on. I am not going to fix something for someone if they are seeking a grade by proving that they have certain skills. On the other hand, I'm not opposed to a mild reworking of something for someone who does not have the best skills at wordsmithing or is prone to missing common issues like repeated words or mistranscription of similar words. Sometimes the difference between a project getting done or it languishing near complete in a closet for three years is using another pair of eyes that hasn't already logged a thousand hours on the project.
Most importantly, I do not consider myself a professional copy editor. If what you need is someone who can correct every em-dash and squash every errant comma in accord with a specific style manual, I will recommend seeking a good copy or line editor. I will be better for word choices, language drift issues, plotholes, pacing, and the like.
Pets
Ah, adding the hobbies quadrant imbalanced me again. Guess I could come up with something to put there after all. I'll add my pets to this side to shore up the gap again.
My cat is named Velvet. She was a rescue who had gone through too many foster homes to be gracious on adoption days, so she came to me for socialization. She didn't have much to do with me for about six months, but she would curl up with my dog quite contentedly for hours. Orianna is long gone now, and Velvet still hides from strangers, but her hobbies are begging for food and stealing body heat and affection from any human she is even casually acquainted with.
I also have a plethora of fish, both fresh and salt water. I like the little ones the best, tetras and gobies. My largest is an albino red-tailed shark. Between the two tanks, I have somewhere between 20-30 fish. Probably near the high mark, but both tanks are heavily planted and landscaped, so seeing everyone regularly is a bit of a task.
