T. Scott McLeod

What Are You Willing To Do To Get What You Want? Perhaps the most important thing about Cory Boatright was that he had an affable personality. Life was hard, the odds were against him, but that was okay because he was still enjoying himself. He had an easy smile and a nice laugh. He joked around with people, he chatted easily, and he could also be serious. He was good looking, smart, cool, calm and collected. A Stanford graduate with top honors in literature, he was now working as a waiter in Los Angeles, trying to make it as an actor and meeting all kinds of people, like Howard - a bumbling old eccentric man with a scarred up face who was interesting, really brilliant, and a good tipper, too. It was no coincidence that Howard always asked for Cory as a waiter. He wanted to ask Cory a question, but how was he going to ask it? Look, I'm a genius. I've written a ton of books. All I've ever done in my life is write books, and now I need your help bringing them into the world. I can't do it on my own. I'm helpless with people. I get all tongue-tied. I'm ugly, scarred, old. Who wants to read my books? Who wants to hear that story? But imagine if you, Cory Boatright, were the golden boy of literature. A prot g . Imagine that. Wrap your head around that story. That's a story that can be sold, that's a story that's presentable, desirable. Cory looked at the manuscript, then turned the page. "Hey, my name's on it," Cory said. "But this isn't my book." "Who says it's not your book?" Howard asked. An intriguing story which is beautifully and poignantly crafted; a story which examines the desires and fears which guide and drive us all; a story of two men pushing to realize their own unique dreams; "The Author, The Actor, & The Whore" will surprise you and touch you with its heartfelt unfurling, while also making you question just what you would be willing to do to live the life of your dreams.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LIFE? He's on a cruise. Thirty-eight. Joe McAllister. He has hopes and dreams for the future. He's with his girlfriend, who he's thinking of making his fianc e. Proposing to her. If she'll accept. The first night on the cruise, with their two friends Marlo and Roger who have come along, also, Joe excuses himself and goes to the bathroom, then, when he comes out, everything has changed. He's an old man now; he's lost forty years of his life. He no longer remembers them, those forty years. They take him to the infirmary; they do tests. A DNT scan, which is, apparently, some piece of medical technology in the future. It can see everything in your body, and nothing is wrong with him - except for the fact, that he can't remember, the last forty years of his life. All he knows is that he went to the bathroom, and then he came out, and now forty years have gone past. He's forty years older, seventy-eight, and he's on his anniversary cruise with his wife, now, Theresa, celebrating forty years of marriage, once again on this cruise with their friends, Roger and Marlo. A mind bending adventure, being thrown into old age, Joe begins a journey to discover who he is now, and how he has lived in the past. In the process, he also discovers what he'd been searching for all along - what it means to truly live.

IS THERE A WILD ANIMAL WITHIN YOU? He's a high school PE teacher. A water-polo player, a surfer, a swimmer. He spends his winters in San Francisco, working and living in the city, and his summers in the mountains, backpacking and hunting and fishing and living off the land. Engaged to be married now, Toby McAllister knows that being gone all summer is off the table. How long is he going to be gone? A couple of weeks. A couple of weeks? Toby can't give his fianc e a definitive answer. "That's exactly the opposite of what this is all about," he explains to her. He's going to get away from things: going to get away from schedules, going to get away from tasks, going to get away from having to do certain things by certain times. He's returning to the wilds where he can just live for a while, the way man was meant to live, though in the end he finally consents to be gone for no more than three weeks. What can he do about it? He loves her, and he's moving into a new phase of life now. Heading off on the trail, glad to be on the trail, Toby can't shake the feeling that someone is watching him. Someone, or something. Watching him, and following him. He turns around several times and looks back, but maybe this is just getting used to the wilds again. Or maybe it's a bobcat tracking him, like he'd been tracked by a bobcat once before. What Toby doesn't know is that he's about to embark on the greatest adventure that he's ever been on in his life --- an adventure from which he may never return.