About the author

Edward P. Cummings

Edward P. Cummings resides in North Texas. &nbsp;A journeyman welder for more than thirty years, BEHIND THE IVY took over a decade to complete and is the first accomplished work of fiction by the author.<br><br>********************<br><br>I was born in California in 1958. &nbsp;My grandparents, on my father’s side, were from Oklahoma and they came to the San Joaquin Valley during the Great Depression looking for work—a life very similar to that in THE GRAPES OF WRATH—as I can attest by the photographs I have and the stories my mother told.<br><br>My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a member of the Irish Republican Army. &nbsp;Born in 1900, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, he came to the U.S. in 1918, working as a subway engineer for the City of New York. &nbsp;He moved to Chicago a few years later, where he met my grandmother and settled down.<br><br>As for me, the son of migrant farm workers, I’m half Irish with Scottish and Native American blood—Chickasaw and Cherokee. &nbsp;My father started a country &amp; western band when I was very young.&nbsp; Unfortunately, playing music in a number of taverns and honky-tonks got the best of him. &nbsp;He became an abusive alcoholic and I left home at age sixteen.<br><br>I did a lot of reading to escape those painful years when my father drank. &nbsp;I was in the fifth grade when I ran across a copy of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee. &nbsp;It was my first crack at a real novel and Lee inspired me, along with Steinbeck, Hemingway, Bradbury, and E.B. White—just to name a few—to write something as meaningful and enjoyable as they did.<br><br>As to my past accomplishments, I have one noteworthy collection of poetry to my credit and a response from President Reagan in regard to the collection. &nbsp;I took Theater Arts in high school, Creative Writing in college and I’ve been a welder for over thirty years.<br><br>There will be a sequel to THE FALLING REIGN entitled A DESPERATE AGE.&nbsp; My next book, THE ROCK FINDER, is an inspirational drama about a female sculptor who takes stock of her life following a near death experience.