Patrick Meadows and Stephanie Shepard Memorial Site
Stories and publications written or inspired by Patrick Meadows and Stephanie Shepard. Some were published, others were not.
Contrary to his introductory sentence, Patrick tells a long story about the founding of the Deia International Festival of Music. Patrick also talks about his work with Daevid Allen and Gilli Smith of Gong.
A short scene study of Patrick’s home town including a few characters that would fit in a classic western.
Robert Graves was a famous author who made his home in Deia and was a celebrity there. Patrick wrote this long piece about their meeting in 2014. I’ve also included some out-takes at the end of the main story.
Patrick reflects on a recurring dream about a house in West Virginia and an old woman with a big book.
Here’s an autobiographic segment about Patrick’s childhood neighborhood in Florida interspersed with flashbacks to less distant times. There are some moments of graphic language.
Patrick describes a trip to visit cousins when he was almost eleven, and concludes with a list a topics that were other West Virginia stories he wanted to write.
This story paints, in very broad strokes, Patrick’s take on meeting my mom, getting married, and becoming a parent. Although Patrick titled this piece Havana, that Cuban city is referenced only in passing.
Here’s a six minute long conversation between Patrick, Suzy, and myself from ten years ago (recorded on 5 Dec 2011). Patrick describes sailing the Zambak and the aftermath, including the reason Patrick and Mari had to leave Turkey. At the end the story pivots and he mentions the telegram saying “no child support.” It’s still […]
There is a Facebook page dedicated to the Music Festival founded by Patrick and Stephanie. Alfredo, who took over the festival when Patrick retired, was featured in a recent magazine or newspaper, and posted the attached article via Facebook. I appreciate that he mentions Patrick early on. Here it is, in Spanish. If someone would […]
Based on his letters from Harlan Ellison, I believe Patrick attended the very first Clarion Science Fiction Writer’s Workshop in 1968. I visited the Clarion web site a couple of days ago and realized that his name was not included on the list of alumni. I wrote to them about it and a very kind […]
I’m danged if I can remember how I met those two old drunks, Maybelle and Mr. Bob. Maybe hitching on the highway from Oak Hill to Fayetteville. It was the summer I quit school in Florida and took off for Oak Hill, homesick for my girlfriend. She was by then a mother, made pregnant by […]
It was inevitable, thought we didn’t know it at the time, that we should meet Bulent. Mari and I flew from Izmir to Ankara where we spent the night. Then the next day by bus to Adana. Sounds like a simple statement, but it was not so simple. The two-propeller plane took off from what […]
In this excerpt, set in Tampa in the early 1970s, Patrick describes how he first learned of Dr. Weightnovel, which turned into a writing project he worked on for the rest of his life, but never finished. I’ve made only minor edits, primarily fixing typos and punctuation. Caution to the reader: this story includes a […]
Create a montage of those events that most often recur in memory. Mari got a a job teaching elementary art in Centereach. We found a cottage in Lake Ronkokoma to rent. Since she was teaching under the name on her teaching certificate, we lived under that name – last name Irvin. Her sister Nancy and […]
This is another autobiographical story with a familiar theme–Patrick and Mari’s journey to Izmir, Turkey. I’ve made only minor edits. About nine o’clock in the morning, Mari and I stepped down from the train onto the platform in Istanbul. Beside us were the two bulging suitcases I had wrestled from Luxemburg to Paris, from there […]