Welcome

Welcome to my website – a place for words and pictures. Words because that is what I do, and pictures because they say so much more than my words can ever say.

Photo: Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California

News

Coming Together

I’m pleased to announce that my new book, Together: Thoughts and Stories About Living in Community, is available from Nurturing Faith Books, the imprint of Good Faith Media. The book is a collection of essays drawn from a decade of blogging about what it means to live in community in all its different forms. Check back here for more details, and visit Good Faith Media to explore their other interesting titles.

Podcasts

The good folks at Good Faith Media recently interviewed me about my new book and writing in general. You can listen here: Good Faith Reads

I also was recently interviewed in a new podcast produced by The Clueless Gent, aka Michael O’Connor. In case you don’t know him, Michael is one of the regular book bloggers and reviewers featured at Lone Star Literary Life. He has reviewed both novels in my Port Aransas series, and in the podcast he digs a little deeper to find out some of the background of those books and what makes me tick as a writer. That conversation is here: The Clueless Gent Podcast.

More from Port A?

I’m always thinking about new tales to tell, whether short stories or longer works, and I’m starting to put words down on paper to see if anything is worth pursuing. Some readers have asked for more stories about Sam and his friends in Port Aransas. I love those folks too, but we’ve been out of touch and so we’ll just have to wait and see if they have more stories and news to share.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you might want to check out the Aransas Series, beginning with Aransas Morning and continuing with Aransas Evening.

          

Aransas Evening was the focus of a 10-day blog tour at Lone Star Literary Life in 2018. There were reviews, interviews, photos and giveaways.

Aransas Evening is the sequel to Aransas Morning published in September 2017. Both books are set in the Gulf Coast town of Port Aransas, Texas. Many readers have asked, “What happens next with Sam, Shelly, Dave, Allie, and Bo?” As it turns out, plenty happens including the arrival of a menacing new character: Hurricane Harvey.

Here is an excerpt: Harvey Approaches

We published Aransas Morning shortly after Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast with historic, life-changing consequences. Aransas Evening followed a little more than a year after the storm. We’ve been donating 75% of the net proceeds from book sales to agencies helping with the recovery and rebuilding efforts, and that effort will continue. Both books are available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at this web site. Visit these links for details:

Aransas Morning

Aransas Evening

Thanks for stopping by!

Jeff

Photo: Bluebonnets, Mount Calm, Texas

Books

I’m pleased to announce the publication of Together: Thoughts and Stories About Living in Community. Available from Nurturing Faith Books, the imprint of Good Faith Media, the book is a collection of essays drawn from a decade of blogging about what it means to live in community in all its many forms. Learn more about it here: Together.

Summertime means it’s time to pick out a good read for the beach, and what could be better than stories about life on the beach? Aransas Morning and Aransas Evening will take you to Port Aransas, Texas and back, and your purchase will help support the region as it continues to recover and rebuild from Hurricane Harvey as well as the loss of tourism in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.

                     

Click a link below and browse the titles. All books are available directly from this site – signed by the author if you wish – and online at Amazon. Some titles also are available on line at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million,  Interabang, Powell’s Books and Half Price Books.

Aransas Morning

Aransas Evening

Grandpa Jack

Jonah Prophet

When the Light Returned to Main Street

The Snowman Uprising on Hickory Lane

Blog

Be Still and Know

For Wilshire Baptist Church There’s an old saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. Monday afternoon LeAnn and I ran some errands that danced all around that thought and then some. First, we went to Texas Oncology at Medical City to drop off a disk of my …

Reboot

For Wilshire Baptist Church Life sometimes seems like an endless chain of reboots. Or, if you want to join me in some alliteration: repairs, rebirths, renewals, replenishments, rejuvenations. But I’ll go with reboot because it’s so 21st century. Such as last week when I went to my mother’s house to reboot her dishwasher. On a …

Leap of Faith

For Wilshire Baptist Church What did you do with your leap day? I’m talking, of course, about February 29, which comes around once every four years and stretches our normal 365-day year to 366 days. The practice started in 45 BC to keep the Roman calendar synced with the seasons. Pretty smart, don’t you think? …

About

A few notes about myself:

I had my first piece of creative writing published in a school district anthology as a second grader, and I’ve been writing ever since. I majored in Journalism at Baylor University and was editor of the Baylor Lariat campus newspaper. I began my professional career at the Waco Tribune-Herald and have written for newspapers, magazines, businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. I currently live and work as a freelance writer in Garland, Texas, with my wife LeAnn.

I’ve published six books: “Grandpa Jack,” a novel about a local hero who becomes a third-party candidate for president; “The Snowman Uprising on Hickory Lane,” a tale for older children about what happens when you bully the wrong person; “Jonah Prophet,” an allegory on the Old Testament Book of Jonah set in the modern business world; and “When the Light Returned to Main Street,” a collection of short stories with Christmas themes.

My newest novels, “Aransas Morning” and “Aransas Evening” about a group of individuals who find redemption and family on the Texas Gulf Coast, were published in 2017 and 2018. A collection of essays on the theme of “community” in its many forms is headed toward publication. Many of these come from my weekly blog for Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.

A more formal resume can be found here: Jeff Hampton.

Glad you stopped by. Your comments and feedback are always welcome.

Jeff Hampton

901 W. Avenue E

Garland, TX 75040

214-578-4611

jefton@aol.com

Photo:  Kings River, Kings Canyon National Park, California