Scribd Editor's Pick: Mother's Little Angels (Excerpt)

Mother's Little Angels by Richard Humphries

There are too many great writers to read in one lifetime, but every once in awhile you come across someone whose voice is so unique and honest that his work grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. For me, that writer was Richard Humphries.

For this month's Scribd Editor's Pick, I chose an autobiographical short story by Humphries, a self-published author who first started writing (for public consumption, anyway) in his early 50s. An art dealer most of his professional life and father of four, Richard also happens to be a former inmate of San Quentin. What makes Humphries' real-life story even more compelling is that he has late-stage pancreatic cancer.

I'm not sure "luck" is the proper word to use in this case, but it's at least fortunate for us, his readers, that Richard has chosen writing as his means for redemption. He writes with humor, wit and grit -- a "Wonder Years"-meets-"Kojak" sensibility that makes his stories heartwarming and heart-wrenching at the same time. I've picked one of them to highlight here but I encourage you to read them all (one of my favorites is Christmas Eve in San Quentin)!