AUTHOR BIO: Gary Winkler

    Located along the South Branch of the Potomac River in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, the farm where I spent my adolescent years was steeped in history and had the scars (Civil War musket holes) to prove it. I also was fortunate to have witnessed the mountain culture, still hard at work, thriving in those days before the coming of the interstate highway system. Inspired by my love for the Appalachian culture, I went to work for the West Virginia Department of Culture & History in 1970s and traveled the state, documenting traditional musicians and craftspeople.
   It was in the mid-1980s that I decided to put my love of the Appalachian culture to words. Since then, as a respected photo-journalist with a career spanning some twenty five years, my work has been featured extensively in newspapers, magazines and many regional publications.
   And now, as I leave the threshold of 50 behind, I turn a new page in my writing career. For years some of my best fiction (and non-fiction) has languished in the file cabinet, unpublished and "out-of-print". But thanks to computers and digital technology, unpublished authors like myself don't have to wait to be "discovered" by the mainstream press and publishing house. Granted, in this do-it-yourself world there's a great deal of schlock out there; but I am determined that Black Larch Press will live up to the same high quality that has characterized all my past endeavors. 
   Today, though the original setting has changed, my roots remain firmly planted on the farm, where I raise rare breeds of sheep (Cotswold and Jacob) For a writer, the farm is a great place to live and work. When I'm not tending to the flock or walking along Catawba Creek with my German Shepherd Minna, I'm sitting at my computer working on my next project. Not a bad gig. GW  

                                                                       As a photo-journalist I had the pleasure of writing for magazines that highlighted the natural beauty and cultural
                                                                       heritage of the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountain regions. This example is only one of over sixty feature articles
                                                                       that appeared in Blue Ridge Country, and other magazines between 1985 and 2003. (September-October, 2001)