Paul D. Dail was born in upstate New York and has lived in Colorado, Oregon, Georgia, Utah, Montana, and even a brief stint in Hawaii.
Writing has always been his passion, and while he will quickly tell you that the people he has met in the many places that he has traveled have been the best schooling he could get, Paul received his formal education in English with a Creative Writing emphasis at the University of Montana, Missoula.
In the years that followed, he has used the power of words to inspire, entertain, inform, and even scare his readers…all depending on the day.
Truth is sometimes stranger: the nonfiction writer
Paul’s first professionally published piece of creative nonfiction was a piece about the birth of his daughter accepted in the Reader’s Write section of The Sun Magazine.
Since then, his creative nonfiction has appeared in Writer’s Digest, The Good Men Project, Elan Woman, and Etched magazine. He has also been a ghostwriter, a reporter for a regional media outlet, and a journalist for two different motorcycle magazines and an arts and entertainment publication.
Previous to his writing career, Paul also spent seven years as a high school language arts teacher, and although he vowed he would never grade another essay after he left the classroom, he was surprised to find that he had a knack for—dare say took pleasure in—editing. Along these lines, in addition to writing, he also served as managing editor for the regional media outlet, arts publication, and motorcycle magazines, leading teams ranging from 10 full-time reporters to 30 freelance contributors. Currently, he is the marketing and communications manager for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and FourPoints Health.
The darker side of the page
Although his first professionally published piece of writing was nonfiction, Paul has always enjoyed fiction writing, specifically speculative fiction.
He is the author of The Imaginings, a self-published supernatural/horror novel, as well as several other short stories. His collection of flash fiction, Free Five, spent over three years in Amazon’s top 50 horror short stories following its publication.
(Full catalog available at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords)
* If you have a little time to kill and really want to delve into the gray matter, the author would recommend his following two blog posts:
– “Why do I like to write horror stories?”
– “My own Works Cited list: 10 books that have inspired me.”
Paul D. Dail 
Hey Paul,
If I remember correctly – and that is always a dubious proposition – I think that the late, great, triggering town, writer Richard Hugo taught at Missoula in the CW Department a few decades ago. Does that sound about right?
Good luck!
You do remember correctly. Actually in the English building was a great photograph of him blown up to almost actual size and framed. In one hand he’s holding a glass of presumably a bourbon or whiskey, and if MY memory serves correctly, he has a cigar in the other.
Paul, just read ” The terrible Old Mr. Roogs, part one…It triggered a memory of my old Social Studies teacher ( minus cell phone of course) . You have served the appetizer of words and I look forward to reading more of your writings..My writing passion is reflecting on past/present relationships with the world in general ,as to the choices and decisions we made or still make and how we view the consequences of said choices….using humor to soften the blow ! Thank you for sharing your world of words..weedbychoice…kjforce
kjforce, thanks for stopping by and commenting. Glad you liked Part One. Hope to see you back for Part Two. The description of what you’re passionate about sounds fascinating. I’ll have to click and see if you have a blog. Otherwise, feel free to leave one in the comments.
you can read more some of my stories /articles at kjforce.wordpress.com or check out excerpts from my latest book @ http://www.scribd.com/doc/70351168/Whatever-I-m-Still-Here
look forward to hearing from you…can hardly wait for part two…
Quality