This book has been traveling 25 years to get here...and now it's here. And you have to call it-is it the book that will win your heart?

STEPHEN DECK is a writer, artist, and photographer. He's been a writer since the first grade, and his main writing tool is a Nakajima WPT-150 electric typewriter. His feature stories have appeared in many newspapers. This artist has served as a draftsman at Headquarters Company at Fort Dix, and he was accentuated and groomed inside the Art Students League of New York City-he was seated in those hallowed grounds on the morning of that hideous September when the terrorists attacked.

His most proud achievement is his volunteer resume which includes: Alaska Fish & Game, two tours of Central Park as a master pruner, American Red Cross--hurricane Katrina--and his WOOF tour is Cessole, Italy where he became a family member in a stone farmhouse and pruned the high mountain grape vines.

The signature of his storytelling is breathing characterization with unusual subject matter, and protagonists who bear very deep scars, both seen and unseen from the whipping posts of life.

This is the 2nd Edition of Land of the Story Tellers, and features the story of Texas Hardpan. That story is told over the graves of Hillcrest Cemetery, under the sun-cracked soil of Uvalde, Texas.