A collection of happy, sad, silly, funny, thought provoking, poems and short stories, and a novella to help pass the time for those who have periods of enforced idleness.

Potpourri is a collection of short stories around a bunch of character sketches and their situations. You will find everyday characters like the man who does the laundry and develops attachment to the household, an auto rickshaw driver who wants to give his best to his son, a sports teacher who is happy being in the background and a professor trying to instill interest in his class. A small town detective, a junior artist from films and a gossiping cook add spice to this collection. The story of a gymnast and the long life tale of a monk in the Himalayas add inspiration to the mix. Whoever the character, these are stories about them as individuals with hopes, emotions, and conflicts in their life. Ranging from hidden sensitive stories set in the everyday happenings in the life of everyday people to the emotions of the heart and expressions of love, Potpourri is a motley bunch of short and long stories written in simple language about simple people that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it.

This book lets the reader see into the personality of God and His love for all. He is a very diversified God and allows us to laugh or cry in these poems. We can move on from the spiritual to the very human comedy of errors that we are prone to make and we can laugh at ourselves. Some poems also describe the beauty of the world that God made exclusively for us. We can touch the face of nature and know that God is giving His approval. These poems are not so deep that they cannot be enjoyed by anyone who reads them. They were meant to be enjoyed with your favorite beverage of choice, sitting in a comfortable chair or beside a loved one in a quiet setting. Good poetry links heart to heart, mind to mind, and promotes an understanding that heightens spiritual love. May these poems do that for you, the reader.

Neil Hickey was a twenty-four year old job seeker when he heard the editor of a major magazine call journalism the most fun you can have, standing up. The young reporter had already come to that conclusion independently after working his way through college as a Baltimore newspaperman. Hed go on to spend more than a half century meeting movie stars, musicians, and some of the most powerful people in Washington as he honed his craft. Now an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Hickey shares an insiders view of pop culture, war, oppression, and even happenings beyond our solar system. Meeting astronaut Neil Armstrong trumped interviews with presidents of the United States, secretaries of state past and present, and Nobel Prize winners. In Singapore, his assignment was to serve as a judge for the Miss Universe contest. Whether its chatting with President Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, traveling with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or investigating the Challenger spacecraft disaster, Hickey shares deep insights into American culture, the nature of war, and the art of journalism in Adventures in the Scribblers Trade.