My parents

My father was Joel Townsley Rogers, author of The Red Right Hand and numerous other mystery, sci fi, and flying stories. He was born in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1896 and died in a nursing home in Washington, DC, in 1984. And my mother, Winifred Rogers, was an artist who was born in New York in 1902 and died, also in a nursing home near D.C., on Christmas Eve 1989.       Nursing homes.       Love. Passion. Brilliance. Fire. And that is how we all wind up.       So far, I only have a few photos of them on their pages. I've produced as extensive a bibliography of my father's work as I can, and perhaps at some point I'll be able to put some of his old pulp stories up as well. I'd like also to display some of Win's paintings; I've photographed and scanned a number of them, but haven't yet gone through the mechanics of getting them onto the website.

	Win's photo albums
	After Julie's death, Julie Lynn sent me three of Win's photo albums, spanning the years 1938–1952 and the early 1970s. A number of the photos are missing, but I've scanned most of the rest and put some of them up on these pages. I'll try to get more of them up — eventually.

	My siblings
	My brother and my three sisters — Winibee, Jackie, Julie, and Joey. They were the four corners of my world when I was growing up. Now all three of my sisters are gone, but they will remain with me always.       I have a page for each of them here, and pages for most of their children (and a smattering of grandchildren) as well.

Maureen

I met my ex-wife, Maureen, at George Washington University. We were studying in the student union and our eyes met and I asked her out for a cup of coffee. Who would have thought we'd be together for twelve years! Our son, Joel, was born in Hollywood on November 6, 1972. We'd moved to Hollywood so Maureen could get a master's in dance from UCLA. A couple of years later we moved to Iowa City, and Maureen taught dance while I went through the Writers' Workshop. Maureen still lives in Iowa City and is a wonderful person. So is Joel.       Loving, patient, reasonable, and good-natured, always.

	Joel
	He is the joy of my life, and a much finer person than I have ever been. How did such a wonder come to pass?

My friends

"If you want to have friends you have to be a friend," my mother used to say. (I didn't realize that she was probably quoting Emerson.) It doesn't come naturally to me, this business of making friends — not as it did to my father and as it does to my son. I wish I were better at it. Maybe I can take lessons.       The friends I have are very dear to me. They are scattered widely across this vast country, from Massachusetts to California, from Oregon to New Mexico to Florida. And, not to get too sappy, they flicker in my brain like a thousand points of light.       Okay, that's too sappy. But they are what sustains me.

	Me
	The gateway to my ego. Where I come from, where I'm going, what I like to do, where I'm living now — stuff like that. . . . Four or five years out of date, of course. . . .

Places

There have been a lot of places.in my life, just as there have in yours. But the people are the important things. This section is mostly just a backdoor way to get to some of the same photos you may have already seen in the sections above.       The lovely photo to the left, of Jones Beach on Long Island, was taken by my dear friend Lois McLaughlin. Six months later, I had moved to Long Island — and my god, I'm still here! . . . Yearning every day to be back in the west, or almost anywhere else. . . .