AllThingsThatMatterPress

Where You Are- By Michael Burns

"I can't take it anymore. Love, L" writes Paul Embry's wife of lessthan a year on the envelope of an electric bill. Thus begins the latesummer and fall of Paul Embry's discontent as he struggles to come togrips with the ambivalence he feels about his marriage that this act ofhis young wife generates in him. In phone conversations with her,later, Paul learns that she has fled to San Francisco, California; hecomes to discover that her motive is to catalyze a change in theirlives, to induce him to pull up roots from the town where he was bornand lived all his life, to begin a new life in a new city, far from thestultifying influence of the depressed New Hampshire mill town wherethey had married and were living.

About the author:

Michael Burns was born in St. Johnsbury,Vermont. His family moved to New Hampshire in 1950 where he attendedhigh school, graduating in 1957. He deferred entrance to college toserve in the U.S. Navy for four years, seeing duty in Southeast Asia in the early days of the Vietnam War. After mustering out of the Navy,Burns returned to New Hampshire where he met and married his wife, and matriculated at the University of New Hampshire.

Encouraged by his freshman English teacher, Burns first became interested in writing fiction in 1963. He continued writing after being inspired by the late Thomas Williams, National Book Award-winning author and mentor to many young writers, among them John Irving.

In 1971, Burns joined the faculty of St. Paul's School, a college preparatory boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. He retired from that school in 2004 after 33 years of teaching chemistry, life science,and creative writing. At present, Burns is living with his wife in rural New Hampshire where he is at work on his fourth novel. Gemini,his first novel, was published by Poncha Press in 2001. Where You Are is Burns' second novel.