An unpredictable Irish woman named Marie Harrington kept an eye on Alan Rosenus when he was little while his parents were at work. Sometimes Marie would use scare tactics: she’d take out her false teeth  and leap at him  from behind a closet door, waving her dangerous-looking dentures. She also gave him her breast until he was five years old.

Since then, his luck has been terrific. His novella, The Old One,  was a Small Press Book Club selection. In  1972 He stumbled upon a long out of print novel by Joaquin Miller called Life Amongst the Modocs. In the process of writing  an introduction to it and distributing 10,000 copies on the West Coast, the Urion Press was born. The Urion Press later received an NEA grant to publish a collection of Rosenus’ short fiction, Devil Stories, which probably wouldn’t have been written without the inspiration provided by Jon Pittman, whose drawings are a feature of the book. The realization that dead Hawaiian frogs can continue to sing their songs long after they’ve been flattened by tour buses prompted Rosenus to create a book of drawings, "Frog Songs of Rural Kauai and Elsewhere." His biography of  19th Century Californio General Mariano Vallejo was published in l995 and won the Spur award for the Best Biography of the Year.

Currently Rosenus is working on a second collection of short stories and a screenplay.  As he sees it the main challenge for any artist or writer is to keep from going insane.  After writing for four or five hours, he often goes to a coffee shop, takes out his colored pencils and through some alchemy of the drawing process, receives absolution. As a result, he seldom fears the poison of rejection slips, hostile criticism, or a political world whose navigation stick seems to be locked in the dive position.

Alan Rosenus, fiction writer/historian/wielder of colored pencils, lives in Saratoga, California. Some of his books are available through Amazon.com.  "Frog Songs of Rural Kauai and Elsewhere" can be obtained from him by sending $10.00 (postpaid) to Alan Rosenus at 20621 Lomita Ave. Saratoga, CA 95070.