admin, Author at Mike Hays Books

Work Smarter, Not Colder

The plan today was to do the final fallen leaf mowing of 2025. The leaves turned and fell very late this fall, so this facet of lawn maintenance has run deep into November and December. (Note: The garden also had an extended growing season, i.e., I ate the final tomato of the season today on… Continue reading Work Smarter, Not Colder

Book Series Challenge: Mary Poppins

In February of 2024, while scrolling through illustrators’ posts on Instagram, I ran across an announcement by Monty Lee for an upcoming illustration challenge called the Book Series Challenge. The challenge was to use any media of choice, excluding generative AI, and create illustrations for seven prompts taken from classic book excerpts. After completing my… Continue reading Book Series Challenge: Mary Poppins

Book Series Challenge: Peter Pan

Book Series Challenge: The Wind in the Willows

Book Series Challenge: Pinocchio

In February of 2024, while scrolling through illustrators’ posts on Instagram, I ran across an announcement by Monty Lee for an upcoming illustration challenge called the Book Series Challenge. The challenge was to use any media of choice, excluding generative AI, and create illustrations for seven prompts taken from classic book excerpts. The Book Series… Continue reading Book Series Challenge: Pinocchio

Baseball Bats

Thirteen years old and I’m playing right field late in the game on a late weeknight game at Liondotte Field, Kansas City, Kansas. It’s hot. It’s mid-June humid, and there’s a haze in the air, which, for once, is not caused by the 1970s-era parents chain-smoking in the stands trying to stay awake. The coach… Continue reading Baseball Bats

A Words Look: Hope by Pope Francis, Part 2.

Build a better future by building a better now. My reading for Lent this year was Pope Francis’s autobiography, Hope. The Pope says in the introduction that this book was scheduled to be released after his death, but he felt the current state of worldly affairs warranted its release before his death and before he… Continue reading A Words Look: Hope by Pope Francis, Part 2.

A Words Look: Hope by Pope Francis, Part 1.

My reading for Lent this year was Pope Francis’s autobiography, Hope. The Pope says in the introduction that this book was scheduled to be released after his death, but he felt the current state of worldly affairs warranted its release before his death and before he fell ill and was hospitalized. It makes me wonder… Continue reading A Words Look: Hope by Pope Francis, Part 1.

A Word’s Look: Workingman’s Blues #2 by Bob Dylan

Of the entire canon of Bob Dylan’s work, I think Workingman’s Blues #2 runs a close second to Like a Rolling Stone. The song came out in 2006 on Dylan’s Modern Times album. I cannot remember where I first heard or became aware of it. It was probably on one of the last area real-life… Continue reading A Word’s Look: Workingman’s Blues #2 by Bob Dylan

A Words Look: General Eisenhower’s D-Day Letter to the Allied Expeditionary Force

DDay+80—eighty years since the Greatest Generation began the greatest offensive in all human history directed at the face of tyranny. With three writing projects in the orbit of three different eras of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s professional life, I’ve done quite a bit of reading and research on Ike Eisenhower. The most important thing I’ve discovered… Continue reading A Words Look: General Eisenhower’s D-Day Letter to the Allied Expeditionary Force