Rod Childress (author, artist) was born in Charleston, West Virginia. He left West Virginia to reside in Atlanta Ga. in 1995. Although he dabbled in art most of his life, he became known for painting historical registered homes in the Atlanta area. At that time most of his paintings were oil on canvas. During his time in Atlanta, he started a  Contact Lens Company selling contact lenses and designing theatrical lenses for movies and theatre. He began to use some of the new digital art tools to assist in his business. Most of the programs he found very difficult to use and began experimenting with simplifying the process. As time went on his Contact Lens company became very successful and in 2012, he sold the company and moved back to WV to a beautiful lake on top of a mountain. He realized he was a hillbilly at heart. With more time on his hands, he picked dreams one at a time from his bucket list. One was to write a novel. He surprised himself when he started putting words down for the plot. The words just kept coming so easily that he was afraid to stop writing. He feared that he would not have that creativity went he started again. But as he started again the next day it reappeared. He now has  5 successful novels to his credit with more to come. 

        "THE TIME IS NOW"

We as humans are not invincible,

Death is not what is referred too,

But the end of mankind being irreversible,

Being too late and nothing we can do.

After thousands of years without a threat,

Of the extinction of earth and even mankind,

We took a direction that eventually we’ll regret,

Disregarding the future as if we were blind.

Now after a hundred years have gone by,

We are living with the mistakes we’ve made,

The uncertainty, fear and we wonder why,

We didn’t see the price that will be paid.

The only hope that is left for us to survive,

Is all the people on the dot finally unite,

And realize that the time has arrived,

It’s now or we have no chance to get it right.  

By Rod Childress