Sketchbook Main Street Salinas

SKETCHBOOK MAIN STREET SALINAS is an addition to my series of books meant to inspire you to make them your own. Whereas my sketchbooks usually contain some fictional stories to help inspire your creativity, for this book, I worked with three community members to write the included non-fiction stories-one for each of the three blocks depicted. I thank these friends for their generous participation. This collection of sketches was compiled over nine months. I take you inside a few locations with multiple sketches. I have immense gratitude for those places that are kind enough to encourage me to hang out with my sketchbook and laptop. With grand apologies, I wasn't able to include everyone that make our City Center special. ¿ Maybe next time...¿¿¿¿

I travel the world with my fictional chef character, creating not only a novel, but also SKETCHBOOKS for this collection. For this one, I stayed close to my home in downtown Salinas. I have also two other local sketchbooks, one titled SKETCHBOOK CENTRAL COAST CALIFORNIA and another, SKETCHBOOK CHERRYBEAN COFFEE, a collection from a couple of years of drawing within one local coffeeshop. For twenty years, I owned and operated Pajaro Street Grill with my wife Lisa, R.I.P. my darling Nar. It was just a hop, skip and a jump from these blocks of Oldtown Salinas. I still live in the rear of the building, though I can often be found out sketching and writing in town. I discovered that my writing skills are enhanced feeding off the energy of being out in public. In 2022 I released SKETCH/COOKBOOK, PAJARO STREET GRILL, a most unusual cookbook that you can also make your own. In case you haven't heard, coloring books for grown-ups are quite the rage. As of the publication of this book, I have also published seven Omar T, travel fiction, culinary adventure novels. They are independent, you do not need to read them in order, though there are some recurring mentions for those who do. The first in the series, Omar T in Monterey California is a Central Coast story. Omar and his family travel to a different location for each of these culinary adventures. The travel fiction aspect is enhanced with descriptions of actual sites, restaurants, bookstores, galleries and shops-including sketches, favorite lists and recipes. Diversity in race, religion, culture, language and sexual orientation not only exists within Omar's family, it is celebrated in these tales. I call this story telling "Mystery Lite" because it is not centered on murder and violence. Any mystery is based on an intriguing aspect of a place's actual history. Omar T novels are meant to be comfort reading, filled with the best of life, romance of the heart mind and soul. Come join the journey. Whether you take it along or you allow it to take you...