Howard G. Franklin

HOWARD G. FRANKLIN was born in St. Joe, Missouri in 1940. Raised in Los Angeles, he received his B.S. in Real Estate and Finance from the University of Southern California, and his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.

From 1968 to 1988, Howard served as a Deputy Public Defender for Los Angeles County, was engaged in the private practice of law, and became a partner in F & F Investment Company.

An avid sports enthusiast, Howard has been “learning to play tennis” since he was seven, and he is fervently devoted to baseball and his beloved Seattle Mariners with a religious zeal inherited from his childhood hero, Grampy Max.

It is family and friends, however, that truly center his life, and he frequently travels to Southern California to visit his two sisters and assorted nephews and nieces—not to forget for a second his daughter Amy and sons Matthew and Nicholas. Having inherited her dad’s social sensitivity and desire to help people, Amy is devoted to her work as a music therapist and drug counselor. Matt is president of Franklin Family Properties, the large real estate development company founded by his grandparents, and is ably assisted by his younger brother Nick, who serves as Controller. Fortunate to have been adopted by his wife Linda’s family, Howard and Linda also travel often to Philadelphia to visit her parents, two younger brothers, and an even larger assortment of nephews and nieces. And when not Skyping, the Frequent-Flyer Twosome also visit Rochester, home to Linda’s daughter Wendy, a psychology postdoctoral fellow, her husband Chris, a software developer, and the proverbial apple of their eye, their grandson Devon, who just celebrated his first birthday.

In 1991, after the untimely death of his second wife, Patty, Howard moved to Portland, Oregon—where amidst the joys and trauma of single parenting Matt and Nick, he began writing full time.

His short stories and poetry have appeared on radio, in newspapers, and numerous national magazines and literary journals such as A Different Drummer, Razem, the Lake Oswego Review, The Sandwich Generation, Silver Quill, Nomad’s Choir, Single Vision, and Poets at Work. He also has appeared as a guest poet in Poetspeak’s Reading Series at Portland State University, and in the Northwest Coalition’s celebration of National Poetry Month in Vancouver, Washington.

An Irish Experience, birthed in 2007, was Howard’s first published book, and combining both his lifelong love of the written word with his unswerving passion for Ireland, represented for him the realization of a lifelong dream. In addition, for those who love a generous portion of magic topping success’s sundae, Inkwater Press’s decision to publish his travel-memoir arrived on his 67th birthday during a meeting in which he was also introduced to the editor, Linda Weinerman, who had strongly shaped the idea of public birth.

Their instant connection soon produced far more than literary sparks, leading to a romance that can only be classified as a real-life fairytale, complete with their marriage on June 15, 2008, followed by a belated honeymoon in Ireland during the spring of 2009.

In 2011, after reading and evaluating the manuscripts of several novels Howard had previously written, it was Linda who generated the idea of polishing Gideon’s Children, due to her belief that it shines a light on the continuing battle for civil rights, and the important role the criminal justice system played during the 1960s, and continues to play currently with respect to the Patriot Act, the No-Fly Rule, and NSA surveillance. Fully agreeing, for the past three years, with Linda’s invaluable assistance as editor and cheerleader, Howard worked assiduously to nurture their vision to fruition.

With publication by Chamberlain Press now scheduled to occur on March 3, 2015, Howard hopes to return to work on another novel entitled A New Truth, and a volume of poetry entitled Life Looks, to be published in late 2016 or early 2017. He also hopes to have more time for foreign travel and to become more involved with charities such as the American Indian College Fund, the Portland Community College Foundation, Hoyt Arboretum Friends, and the White Oak Savannah.

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