Sonny founded Over the Transom Bookstore in Fairhope and its annual literary conference, Southern Writers Reading. He is also founder of the non-profit Fairhope Center for Writing Arts.
He is the author of the novels, The Poet of Tolstoy Park, A Sound Like Thunder, and Cormac - The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing. Sonny edits the anthology Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe.
Sonny wrote and self-published three books: Rembrandt the Rocker, an illustrated parable on aging that poses as a children's book; A Yin for Change, a book of "dime-store" philosophy; and a ghost-written biography of Clarence Darrow.
Sonny is the former editor-in-chief of Mobile, Alabama's city magazine, Mobile Bay Monthly; he also published and edited The Eastern Shore Quarterly magazine and edited Red Bluff Review.
He was a reporter on his college newspaper, and co-edited The Southern Bard literary magazine at the University of South Alabama.
Sonny’s training as a writer began
with his first real job at 15, where he flipped burgers as a short-order
cook at Woody’s Drive-In in Millport, Alabama. His story-telling
education continued as service station attendant, pants folder,
folk singer, used car salesman, sailor and electronics technician
in the U.S. Navy, tugboat deckhand, traveling used tire salesman,
carpenter, building contractor, real estate salesman, purveyor of
collectible automobiles, magazine editor, newspaper columnist, teacher,
lecturer, and coffeehouse manager. THE PHOTO AT FAR RIGHT is a sewer pipe repair made by the author that also presented a perfect chance to leave a buried record declaring his favorite job.
THIS PICTURE shows Sonny and his wife, Diana, and sons, John Luke (R) and Dylan.
Sonny knuckled down in there somewhere and collected a couple of college degrees, which might or might not have helped.
Knowing that a writer never lets the truth stand in the way of a good story, Sonny believes he is missing some critical experience in embellishment: He has not yet made a bid for political office nor preached a tent revival—though, regarding the latter, he has always hankered to do so, choosing not to, however, under threat of divorce.
