James Francis Turano, born and raised in Fresno, California, after living "la vida loca" for 25 years in the Sacramento area and Grand Forks, North Dakota, has returned home. He has 35+ years of award-winning leadership with Fortune 500 companies driving sales profitably. And although James has been writing for decades he's only just set off on his literary journey by writing "something good"* enough to be published. James has written over 70 poems, a dozen memoir vignettes, a magazine article, and several pieces of creative nonfiction. He is honored to be published for the first time in the Spring 2024 edition of the "Kings River Review" a literary journal of Reedley College. "We believe your work will enhance our journal and offer readers a unique perspective," kingsriverreview@reedlleycollege.edu. Writing poetry to prose, his voice is deeply rooted in "growing up Fresno, growing Turano," catching and releasing a zeitgeist influenced by his singular take on life. A life heavily influenced by his single mother Dorothy who raised James and his four siblings after his father Ross committed suicide on Valentine's Day 1972. Dorothy never remarried. She kept a roof over their heads, food in their bellies and clothes on their backs, all the while sacrificing her own needs for her children. And she accomplished all that while putting all five of her kids through San Joaquin Memorial high school, the finest private high school between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Period.James is currently revising his novella, "One Night in Fresno. Set in 1979, it"s a love story, an allegory, a myth-in-the-making of boy meets girl, of 'something wicked this way comes' to the Tower District, and of the immutable truth that shit happens for a reason.He is also putting the final touches on interviews of two brilliant creative individuals he had the pleasure and privilege of meeting in person within the last year. The first, Obie Bowman, is a master architect of the Sea Ranch style found in Northern California along the Sonoma County coast, ogb@obiebowman.com. Karen Hall is a classically trained cellist and improv clown who combines the two disparate disciplines in a sublime one woman show filled with much music, self-revelation, and laughter, kchall@126gmail.com. * "Lay in the weeds and wait, and when you get your chance to say something, say something good." Merle Haggard