Biographical Note:
I was born Donald Blalock in a tarpaper shack in the Oregon high desert village of Terrebonne. Years later I was christened Athanasius while standing in a large tin washtub in an Antiochian Orthodox church on a noisy boulevard in Portland.
In the years between I was raised in Japan by freelance, hardshell Baptist missionaries, where I was compelled to attend U.S. military dependents schools. It was there my feet were set on the road to perdition which landed me in folk rock bands instead of the starched white shirt, art deco tie, and unctuous pompadour of a Baptist preacher.
In lieu of a formal education my appreciation of well crafted song lyrics led me to devour huge portions of works
from the entire pantheon of English poets ranging from the earliest Anglo Saxon fragments to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, with a personal preference for the incomprehensible, scripture-like poetry of Ezra Pound.
After becoming tired of the musician´s life, and having been anointed with the aroma of (an undetectably fake) snootiness gained from reading the New York Review of Books and dressing in sweaters with leather elbow patches, I was admitted into an Episcopalian diaconal seminary and later ordained deacon in an elaborate Anglo-Catholic ritual worthy of wealthy Lombardy cardinal. I subsequently operated a parish book shop and a food for the homeless program.
The inevitable soul sickness arising from this agonizing period of being a clerical impostor led me to flee to a bohemian enclave of the city where I was unknown and anonymous. From there I took up working on the waterfront and searching for the “light which lighteneth all men that come into the worlde.’
Following the incident in the tin tub mentioned above my life taken on a refreshing newness and sanity. I am surrounded by a new extended family of diverse ethnicities who care nothing of my past. I have married the love of my life and am writing fiction. I have two daughters and one son who are all adults and the finest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.
My first novel, McZoot's Travels (A Journey to Zora Gora) is now available at Squid Ink Press -- .
Two more novels are currently in the works.
Athanasius Blalock