Welcome to kentonkilgore.com. And what is this site about? Well, honestly, I’m not quite sure. Mostly, I suppose, it’s a place for family photos. A lot of my wife’s family lives in the Pittsburgh area, and her numerous siblings are spread out around Washington D.C.; my family is scattered around the U.S. and Germany. By posting photos here, we can keep in touch with them.

I write for a hobby, so I’ll be posting various fiction pieces and—ulp!—poetry here. I also like to spout off every now and then about various things, mostly about childrearing and disability issues, but occasionally about less-serious stuff like football; you can find rants and essays here. And just for gits and shiggles, I have a bio section, which will hopefully be more entertaining than it sounds. 

Despite appearances, I don’t really think of this site as a weblog (or blog). Most blogs that I’m familiar with consist of online diaries (“Today I went to King’s Dominion with my friends Doug and Jason”). Or comments on current events (“The government totally dropped the ball on Katrina relief in New Orleans!”). Or self-promotional pieces (“Just got done with Chapter 12 of my new book, and you can catch me on Oprah next week”). Or a mishmash of those elements. 

None of which is my style. While I know that our relatives want to see photos of the kids (which is mostly the sorts of photos you’ll find on this site), I’m pretty sure they couldn’t care less about our day-to-day life (“Joni just got back from the grocery store—can you believe the sale they have at Acme this week?”). And if our relatives don’t care, I’m sure that no one else cares either. So there’ll be no “online journaling” here.

As for commenting on current events: I’ll pass on that, too. Inept and corrupt government, genocidal wars, horrific crimes, natural disasters, corporate thievery, ecological devastation, and celebrity scandals happen year after year, and only the names and places change. If you want to read insights about them, I suggest you visit blogs like John Scalzi’s Whatever. Meanwhile, I’m a busy guy with a job to hold down and kids to raise. I leave the shouting about current events to others. 

Self-promotion? My wife won’t let me quit my day job (good thing, too). I post stuff just to see it out there and have people enjoy it. If you like a story or a piece I wrote, why not send me an e-mail and let me know? If you liked it so much that you want to send me a dollar or two, I won’t turn it down. If you’re a book publisher who wants to buy my stuff, I’m all ears. But I don’t expect any financial gain from this site. It’s meant for fun. 

So wander around and enjoy. 

Kenton Kilgore
September, 2006