Fred A. Wilcox lives in Ithaca, New York. He is a poet, journalist, and fiction writer. He has been a laborer on high-rise construction, a truck driver, waiter, bartender, ditch digger, house painter, secondary school teacher, and college professor. Wilcox’s nonfiction book, Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange, broke the story about the use of chemical warfare in Vietnam. He is also a veterans’ advocate.
“Tommy Mackin’s Vow celebrates life’s messy bumptious wonders. With cracking prose and stylistic verve, Wilcox writes a sleek story about enduring family love, the consequences of one’s actions, and how dreams for the future are conjured from hope’s insistent push into the wild and fragile present. Humor and tremendous heart take the story into deep Irish heritage as well as the present woes of society and family. For Tommy indeed it’s Erin go bragh.” — Maureen McCoy, author of Junebug.
Fred A. Wilcox’s Possum Fool Stories is an imaginative
and uniquely amusing collection. Mickey, obsessed with
death and dying, offers sympathy to the bereaved in an
unusual way. People join an encounter group where they
dress like animals and act out their “inner beasts.”
An Irish woman feeds tourists delicious meals made
from the hearts of her many lovers. A man goes to jail
because of his dog’s insatiable wanderlust.
These whimsical stories express the author’s own
empathic and thoroughly original personality.
Cayuga Lake Books 