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ABOUT ME
In 1990 George Heiring retired as a senior partner with one of the world’s largest management consulting firms, then headquartered in the Chicago area. Soon after, George and his wife Donna took up residence on the more seasonably agreeable shores of Lake Oconee in central Georgia and resolved to explore the lesser-known parts of the world. Those adventures are reflected in his recent writings.
George’s short stories, essays, and poems have been featured in a variety of national media, including seven books and eighteen literary and poetry anthologies. His recent books—The Seasonal Heart and Turning Leaves—are regional best sellers. His literary honors include the Byron Herbert Reece International Award, the Anderson Social Poetry Prize, and Georgia’s Founders and Mnemosyne Awards. In 2013 he helped found the Georgia Writers Museum in Eatonton, Georgia, and served as President for four years.
Review from Lakelife magazine
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BOOK REVIEW
A Beautiful Book…and I’m Not Lion 10/12/2020©
Last month, George Heiring, an award winning poet, finished his book When Do the Lions Eat? He handed it to my wife and asked if we’d read it and give him our thoughts? My wife said, “of course,” and I stared at my shoes.
My wife dove right into George’s book, finished it, and loved it.
Time went by. “Have you read George’s book, yet?” “Do I have to?”
I finally fire up a Maker’s Mark rocks; half recline the Barcalounger and am immediately skewered by the confident malevolence of the lion leering from the cover of Mr. Heiring’s book.
George has written a collection of 52 expertly crafted short stories, and his work is no more “just a travel book” than Travels with Charlie is just a road trip. Yes, the backdrop to each adventure is a place they’ve visited that smacks exotic: Papua New Guinea ’88, Petra, Southern Jordan 2010, Guiliin, PR China ’85, Bergen, Norway ‘79, and 48 others. His words paint the occasion, their shared experience, and the culture and humanity of the people. The reader leaves each story with a sense of not just what this place looks like, but what it must feel like. Brilliant!
Then there’s his attention to the important detail of arrangement. George completely ignores the rules and constraints of chronology and geography. Instead, he lets the pace and mood of each story dictate where it falls in his arrangement. Our hero skips from the slow-paced fading elegance and isolation of poolside banana daiquiris at Vieques, Puerto Rico in 1991 to 2010 where he’s being mistaken for a blood-stained, blue-eyed terrorist (quite rare in the Mideast) attempting to cross the Jordan/Israeli border. Then he changes continents and time travels back to 1982 in Northern Tanzania, where our travel-wise author asks the guide driving the Range Rover “When do the lions eat?” [Book plug, Book plug] And immediately imagines neon lights flashing this message overhead: STUPID QUESTION…STUPID QUESTION.
In When do the Lions Eat? George never lets our attention wander with his feel for what theme, what pace, what mood should come next. Light and humorous to reflective and touching, you’re gonna tear up over bread crumbs on a killing field in Cambodia. And then you will smile at the beautifully written “The Great Barrier.” My wife tells me its poetry. But what does she know? Once again, it doesn’t rhyme. And then, wham! You’re in the Baliem Valley of Indonesia, where Donna goes missing with a hunting party of “unclad” native tribesmen. I always knew she was a fun lover.
Finally, George, can’t help himself, and in his 52nd and last story he waxes poetic with Ships White, Ships Gray. I can tell it’s a poem because it’s arranged in a series of four-line stanzas. Four perfect rectangles of words. Just like the Corp of Cadets waiting to be reviewed…exactly as a poem is supposed to look.
I read it anyway.
It doesn’t rhyme!
And all this time I thought he was a poet.
Bill Dudley
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THE LOOSE CABOOSE
BILL DUDLEY
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MY BOOKS
If you have a yen to experience different cultures and an appetite for humor and adventure, this buffet of fifty-eight short stories will be a feast for you. George Heiring brings to life six decades of travel to exotic locales on and off the world map, relating wild and wacky experiences and curious encounters that will keep a smile on your face as you turn the pages.
An award-winning storyteller, poet, and celebrated humorist, George transports you into the edgy, Stone Age environs of Irian Jaya, takes you trekking in foothills of the Himalayas, sends you racing downhill from the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, and scales a thousand-foot sand dune in Namibia. Along the way, you will meet those with lifestyles far different from your own—a Paris bargeman, a Maasai warrior, a Red Army Colonel, a Seychellois mercenary, a Balinese woodcarver—all sharing unique tales that give their culture its shape and vitality.
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The Seasonal Heart
Christmas...a time of wonder, joy, excitement, hilarity, and reverence has been movingly captured in stories and poems from an award-winning storyteller and paintings by celebrated Southern artists. The heart of the season pours from these pages with a pause for reflection, an abundance of laughter, and space left for a tear or two. Here is a book of holiday memories and perspectives that will help you revive yours.
Turning Leaves
Spring, summer, and fall...are richly celebrated with stories and poems covering a wide range of recollections, discoveries, and emotions. This book takes you on a joyous journey with prose and paintings, its pages liberally laced with humor. Topics include surviving the hazards of homebrew, pursuing a malodorous horse at midnight, hedgehopping Pike’s Peak in a dilapidated biplane, watching baseball history being made. A “feel good” book friends and family will enjoy.
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TESTIMONIALS
“George Heiring is a storytelling genius. His stories deliver a zany and interesting way to travel the world in five-minute intervals. I thoroughly enjoyed each “excursion” I read and couldn’t wait to move on to the next.”
—Lynn Hobbs, Editor, Lakelife Magazine
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“My postings have taken me around the world. George Heiring has brought people, places, and cultures I encountered vividly to life. He touches the soul of those he has met and shares their stories with humor and inspiration.”
—James Homan, Colonel, United States Marine Corps (ret.)
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“George Heiring’s humor, unique literary style, and vivid details of localities in remote corners of the world keep you turning pages. The exquisite aspects of humanity he brings to life crystallize as brilliant diamonds.”
—Dr. Bahrum Barry Darugar, vascular surgeon and
award-winning author of “Out of Iran”
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CONTACT ME
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