Watch for the new Corrigan novel, Deadly Gold, to be released December 29, 2015.My career as a writer started in the advertising department at a weekly newspaper, where I dazzled the reading public with such literary gems as, "Avocados, 4 for $1." After a year of that, in search of a better outlet for my creative talent, I went to work at Freightliner Corporation, to assist in writing their service manual.I took technical writing seriously and composed my technical manuals in complete, grammatically correct sentences. My success as a tech writer reached its pinnacle seven years later, when the Society for Technical Communication awarded me their highest honor in their annual international publication competition, for the service manual I created Adec Inc., an Oregon manufacturer of dental equipment.This led to my promotion to Marketing Communication Manager, where I was put in charge of not only the technical publications, but also corporate advertising. While it is true that you can write a whole lot more about saliva ejectors than you can about avocados, after ten years I'd pretty well exhausted every creative thing that can be said about them.At that point in life, I felt the compulsion to find a way to make a living doing something that I would do even without getting paid for it, so I went out and bought a whitewater rafting company. During that period, my writing was focused on selling people the idea of spending their summer vacation time on inflatable rafts floating the great rivers of Oregon, Idaho and California. Later, I wrote a compilation of amusing anecdotes about my adventures as a rafter, outfitter and guide; and someday if I can figure out how to do so without getting sued for slander, I might publish it.Whitewater rafting remains a passion in my life, but as a career it fell short of my expectations. You see, I expected to make money at it. Eventually, I sold the rafting business and returned to the corporate world. I owned a printing business, managed the graphic services group for the Oregon Department of Transportation, and after retirement, joined my wife in real estate.But during those treacherous recent years when most people could neither afford to keep their homes nor to sell them, I found myself with time enough to do something I'd always wanted to do: write a novel. All of my professional life has been built upon my ability to put words on paper, so the writing of a work of fiction is not exactly a quantum leap. El Camino takes place in the area south of Portland, Oregon, along the banks of the Willamette River, where my wife and I live. Life on the riverfront provides an endless fabric of events and personalities for the backdrop to my novel. The places mentioned in El Camino are real, and a person with the time and the inclination could visit and see where the events in my story take place. This, I believe, lends an aura of authenticity to the novel, and that is something I demand from fiction.The next chapter in my biography is yet to be written. It will be shaped by what happens once my novels are published and released to the reading public. I hope you enjoy what I've written half as much as I've enjoyed writing it.Read more about this authorRead less about this author