D Jay Collins

Writer, Thinker, Author

I was one of those kids that read everything! The signs we passed in the car, books given for birthdays, and even the TV Guide (we used to have those back in the day). I also started writing early on with poems to cute girls, essays for school that were a lot more than what was expected, and just about things that happened in my daily life.

As a young adult, I was even part of the poetry renaissance in Chicago as a regular performer at Spice’s Jazz Bar on Monday nights which included a fellow poet and friend, Theodore Witcher, writer/director of “love jones”. A movie that inspired current and future poets across the country. Eventually, the owners of Spice’s retired and closed shop and while others continued writing and performing, I was busy managing various businesses and not making any time to be creative.

For the last decade, I realized I missed that feeling of inspiration, of putting words on the page, and sharing them with a receptive audience. Before “The Baker’s Dozen”, my first fictional short story, I had never created characters from scratch and surprised myself at the wondrous feeling it gave me. I hope you enjoy this one and I aspire to have many more for you as well.