The Gandy Dancer and Other Short Stories

About the Book

All of the stories in The Gandy Dancer are touching and surprising, O'Henry twists to Jack London yarns. This delightful collection, full of beautiful imagery of land and skies and people, are stories of the USA told by an American girl, raised coast to coast, and north to south, who took off on her own at 17 to see what's up. There's persistent virtue to each adventure, triumph over adversity, as they reach heart and soul for a rare look at the lives of strangers and the paths they picked up for themselves. The classic independent spirit of the American adventurer is captured in each original tale, and the everlasting joy of charting new territory. Has anything, Sparhawk asks, got more punch to it than a road map?

"Your book is very handsomely put together, and you write in a lively and engaging way."
Larry P. Arnn, President
Hillsdale College, Michigan, USA

From the Monterey Herald, March 8, 2004, Page One, Section B, Five column story and photograph

Author Draws from Rich Life

"Sparhawk's life has been a coast to coast odyssey of day jobs, art and writing... she's worked as a radio producer and press secretary to onetime Vice Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro, network news writer, newspaper reporter, painter and sculptor.

'I like doing things that are a challenge,' she said."

About the Author

B.D. Sparhawk is an unusual woman who has been: the only outdoor scaffold-climbing billboard painter in the USA; radio and T.V. producer; news-writer for CBS, ABC & Fox T.V.; writer on THE NEW YORK POST; US Congressional Press Secretary. She's had her own sign painting, mural and portrait business; wax chaser in a bronze foundry; sculptor, and more. And says she would still choose scary-thrilling entrepreneurial razzmatazz above all else.

SPARHAWK lives in Big Sur with her cat Gorgeous. She has been driven her whole life by curiosity and the chance to witness. She is currently working on her second novel, Whirlpool, and her first novel soon to be published, Noise. And four new children's books.

SPARHAWK was commissioned for original oil portraits William F. Buckley, Jr.; James Fox (former head of the NY FBI) and other luminaries. Her work has appeared in major motion pictures, and is in wide-ranging private collections. She designed and sculpted models for a heroic-sized bronze memorial to the slain police officers of NYC (The Angel & The Officer); her spirit of adventure most recently took her cross country as a photographer's assistant on T.V's SURVIVOR-AFRICA, 2001 after which she moved to Yosemite for a year to write.