Oedipus on a Pale Horse
by David Sheppard

When David Sheppard was twenty years old, he was considering a literary life, kicked off by an extensive trip to Greece, when a potentially deadly encounter with his father derailed it and set him on a different course that resulted in a career in aerospace working Space Shuttle projects and NASA missions to the outer planets. Now thirty-two years later, he fulfills that life-long dream by traveling for two and one-half months alone in Greece. He has come prepared with a thorough knowledge of ancient myth, and also an intimate knowledge of the archaeological landscape.

Novelsmithing

This book is intended to provide the beginning novelist, or perhaps even the experienced novelist who has lost his way, with a discussion of the underlying structure and methods of novel writing. The completion of the first nine chapters should provide the author with a rough draft for his novel. The ideas developed in this book concern basic storytelling and could just as easily apply to narrative non-fiction, theatre and screenwriting. (Previously titled Jungian Novel Writing)

Coming Soon

The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis
by David Sheppard

This work is a trilogy. The first two volumes (Daughter of Darkness and The Dadouchos) will be published in Febrary 2010 with the third volume (The Twice-Born) to follow in 2012.

In480 BC, the great King Xerxes of Persia invaded Greece and  planned to expand his dominion to the Atlantic Ocean, and if Greece hadn’t repulsed the invasion, Western Civilization as we know it, together with its democratic institutions, would not exist. Indeed, today we would be Oriental. Much has been written about the invasion, but little concerning heroic women. According to Herodotus, feminine influence in the form of the goddess Demeter was a deciding factor in the famous battles of Salamis, Plataea and Mykale. This novel concerns this feminine influence as personified by the novel's protagonists, priestess of Demeter and her daughter.

This eBook is a second generation Grapes of Wrath novel, set in California's San Joaquin Valley. Bobby's older brother, Lenny, has been dead for almost five years, and still Bobby doesn't know what really happened to his brother. Did he actually die in an automobile accident? Or did someone kill him? Bobby Ray's crazed, but somehow uncommonly knowing, aunt helps him uncover the truth. Bobby is also assisted by an old wino who comes into his life now and then to help him over the hurdles. In the background of all this is the mysterious, violent Charles, a friend of Lenny's who left shortly after his death, but who has now returned seemingly to help Bobby Ray unearth the truth. Bobby Ray is desperate to get out of this community so that he can build an new life elsewhere. Will unraveling the mystery of Lenny's death liberate him? Or will it destroy him and his family?