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Welcome to my site!

My real name is Tom Crankshaw, and I write my fiction and non-fiction under the pen name, L. Garvey Thomas. I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and my stories have appeared in such journals as The Chaffin Journal, The Bracelet Charm, The Commonline Journal, and The Eunoia Review. In September of 2016, Red Dashboard Publishing released my first dime novel, “Get in the Ring.”

Much of my creative energy goes towards writing fiction. I’m always jotting down and developing story ideas and seeing where they go. I also check the web for homes to place my stories. A goal of mine is to help other writers or people who want to tell their story. You’ll see some personal anecdotal stories of experiences I had on my writing journey. I want to connect with readers through these stories and let them know that although the writing journey is tough, it isn’t impossible and that setbacks can be overcome, even if humor is the main weapon to do so. If I release a book or get published, you’ll find that here as well.

Want to know more? Just check out the site for writing tips, social media pages, and sites I am affiliated with. Also, you find my published fiction on here! Click on their titles on the header to read each. Not sure where to start? Below are some plot descriptions for each story.

Friday After School

Remember seventh grade? Pop quizzes, recess, school crushes? Evan Riley experiences all of these, especially a crush on Mindy Duncan. When Frank Taylor, the new transfer student, steals her attention, Evan feels he has to take action. Not only does Frank get Mindy’s attention, he gains acceptance from his friends as well, but when all the seventh grade girls focus on Frank, all the boys see things from Evan’s perspective. They all band together to take down Frank once and for all. The solution: an after school football game. It’s not just a game; it’s an initiation.

Slingshot

Ben Caldwell, like any other 12 year-old boy, just wants to play videogames and hang out with friends, but being underprivileged makes these two things difficult. With the guidance of his mother, his mentor, Irwin Wyatt; and armed with a newly found slingshot, Ben and his active imagination grapple with constant temptation, his nemesis, Jim Cook; and the harsh realities of poverty.

Now Sing!

Here are some good places to sing: in the shower, in your bedroom with the music cranked at high volume, and in your car with the windows all the way up. Why are these places the best ones to sing? Because no one can hear you if you are horrible. I’ve been guilty of singing in all of these places, but when I was told to sing in a theatrical based poetry class I took in college, I resisted. The outcome and the lessons I learned are in my personal essay “Now Sing!”

Click on the commonline journal  in the Links and Affiliations Page.

Get in the Ring

Doug “The Shovel” Keenan boxes zombies for sport to pay off his missing brother, Jimmy’s, debt. The Lombard Brothers, who run the Underground Boxing Circuit, pay him frequent visits to take his winnings, and go as far as to harass Doug’s mother and his childhood friend and manager, Miles. With Jimmy’s whereabouts unknown, Doug recalls Jimmy’s influence on him growing up, his rise in The UBC, and the origin of his debt to The Lombards.

Click on “Red Dashboard.com” or “Get in the Ring” on the Links and Affiliations Page to purchase your copy.    

Spend It

What would you do if you found a million dollars? Most people say that they’d go on vacation, buy a beautiful house, and Marv Stinson is no different. In “Spend It,” he encounters the scenario of finding a million dollars, but the option of spending it at his own pace isn’t an option. Silas Lapham, the man who placed the money, says Marv has to keep it and spend it in one week. If he doesn’t, Marv loses everything but the clothes on his back. If he succeeds, he keeps all of his new possessions and gets a one hundred million dollar reward. On his spending journey, Marv demonstrates kindness, finds and loses love, and learns that doing good for others returns kindness in sorrowful times.

Click on the eunoia review in the Links and Affiliations Page.

Saint Hal

Kathryn Palmer is an Architectural School drop out turned bartender whose life consists of going to work and taking care of her ungrateful father, Hal. She yearns for love and companionship and invents a fantasy world where she gets both. At work, she meets Kevin, and she finds her fantasy world now has that missing piece. Kevin comes back to Slater’s to pursue Kathryn, but Hal ruins any prospects for his daughter. Making that her final straw, Kathryn takes a stand against Hal.  Will Kathryn find the companionship she’s looking for with Hal in the picture?

Simeon’s Story Part One: To Vietnam

Part one of an excerpt of my novel in progress, “Sometimes Heaven, Sometimes Hell,” this is a story within the story. Nathan Conway, the main character of the novel, navigates his way through purgatory, stuck in the very house he grew up in with a family who has no connection to him. This is his penance for taking his own life. His spirit guide, Simeon, helps him through the space between the land of the living and the dead by teaching him to move objects, read minds, and communicate with the living. Throughout these lessons, Nathan asks Simeon where he came from and how he became a spirit guide helping those who died. Simeon dodges these questions but finally reveals his back story as a teenage hippie in upstate New York who ships off to Vietnam.

Simeon’s Story Part Two: Buffalo in the Field

Part two of Simeon’s back story, and also an excerpt of “Sometimes Heaven, Sometimes Hell,” Simeon reveals to Nathan the turning point of his tour in Vietnam and what led him to his own downward spiral. He tells Nathan how a gunshot wound to the knee discharged him from the Army. He also tells Nathan how his father and the town reacted to his coming home and what led him to take his own life. The story doesn’t end there, however. Simeon tells Nathan how he committed  suicide and the supernatural stranger who met him on the other side. She offers him a deal to guide souls or stay on the very bridge he died and add to its folklore.

Dead for a Day

Did you ever wish you could be your favorite movie character? I bet the answer is “yes,” and with this fantasy in mind, I participated in The Walking Dead Escape obstacle course as a walker. My personal essay, “Dead for a Day,” shares my comical account of being a zombie from make-up preparation to encounters with frightened survivors to the make-up removal.

Deeds

No good deed goes unpunished, especially for Paul Bennington. He hates his job to the point that he’s late to it almost every day. As he rushes to work one day, an old lady asks him to open her window, and she sees this as an infinite well of kindness. Each morning she has a new chore for him from going to the store to get bread to burying her cat! He takes measures to avoid her, but it gets to the point that she knows his every move.

“Deeds” won the Fall 2004 Judith Stark Creative Writing Contest Through Community College of Philadelphia.

As time goes by, more will be added. Thank you for stopping by, and I hope to see you again.