Paul Brink

Paul Brink was born in West View, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh.  When he was
at the age of 12, his family moved to Johnstown, PA.  After graduation from high school,
he followed the beaten path of the day into the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, becoming a
lathe machinist.  His steel industry career ended in September, 1942, when he enlisted in
the U.S. Marine Corps and was sent to the Southwest Pacific, where he spent most of
World War II.

Returning to civilian life, Paul married in 1946 and entered the printing business with a
Baltimore yearbook publishing firm, first as a proofreader, then as a film stripper and
finally as a salesman.  It was the beginning of his lifelong love of printing and publishing.  
In 1960, he was transferred to New York City by his employer, Haynes Lithograph Co.
of Rockville, Maryland.  That company eventually merged with Fawcett Publishing, and
the new firm become a major printing supplier for Time, Inc., National Geographic,
Prentice-Hall and others.  

During those printing years, Mr. Brink completed a four-year night school course in
Commercial Illustration at the Maryland Institute of Art, in Baltimore, fulfilling a
long-standing urge to draw.  He also began to write.  As an avocation, he wrote articles
for trade magazines, particularly those devoted to printing, publishing and sales.  
Occasionally he digressed into more challenging writing assignments for more diverse
publications.

In the late 1960s he was with Kiplinger Washington Editors in a sales management
capacity, and soon became Vice President for Sales with Tidewater Publishing of
Centreville, Maryland.  Paul semi-retired in 1975 and moved to Port Charlotte, Florida,
where he was a part-time employee of WEEJ, a local FM station, doing on-air news and
some commercial writing as well.  With more leisure time available, he began to write
more seriously, producing sketches and short stories based on his own personal
experiences.

When he moved to the Brevard area in 1987, he continued in that vein and had one of his
short stories published in a 1994 edition of Haunts Magazine (based in Rhode Island) and
he also had some feature articles in various regional newspapers.  Turning to play writing,
Paul created several skits which were performed by CATS (the Connestee Amateur
Theatre Society), culminating in the musical comedy, Assessments, Fees and Cherokees,
which had three performances in April, 2002.   That show was followed by A Sign at the
Outta Inn, a two-act play initially performed by the Asheville Community Theatre in
December, 2002, and scheduled to be staged by CATS in October, 2007.  One of Paul's
short comedy skits, Unfamiliar Territory, has been part of the BLT-To-Go repertory
since 2005.

Paul Brink says, "Along the way, I had assistance from some special people, who helped
me develop the sophistication necessary to start doing acceptable short-story and play
writing.  I owe them many thanks for this present honor.  They know who they are"

The Belated Suitor