I grew up listening to my dad, a miner who rose through the ranks to be the mine superintendent in Coalwood, W.V. , yelling orders into his black company phone. He wanted to get coal out of the ground and into coal cars and on its way to steel mills. Homer Hickam Read Quote
When legislators do something that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, there’s always the suspicion that they’re in somebody’s pocket. Homer Hickam Read Quote
After I’d gotten a year under my belt in college, I thought I’d outgrown my home. Homer Hickam Read Quote
The time frame is summer 1961, a year after the gold medal in the National Science Fair. I always saw my ‘Coalwood’ books as a trilogy. This book finishes the story of my life in Coalwood. I think it’s the best of the three. Homer Hickam Read Quote
I always give a little talk before I sign books and ask for questions. I love the Q&A sessions. We have a lot of fun at my book signings. I make sure of that! Homer Hickam Read Quote
I have the best fans of any author in the country and they deserve the best from me, too! Homer Hickam Read Quote
Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn’t know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. Homer Hickam Read Quote
I ate supper after Dad saw the evening shift down the shaft, and I went to sleep to the ringing of a hammer on steel and the dry hiss of an arc welder at the little tipple machine shop during the hoot-owl shift. Homer Hickam Read Quote
