| 1983 | Works at IBM. Family move into Grandma and Pop Cason's house. Inherit house, sell The Cottage. Saunders publishes Common Sense, Full Plate, Blue Darter, and Lost Writings. With Larry and Hazel's help. Shows them to IBM and asks to write books like them for his job. |
| 1985 | Quits IBM "by mutual consent." Holds counterfair in front yard when The Delray Affair denies him a booth. The Dreyfus Affair - Banned Books. Mortgages house and writes and publishes Evil Genius and Open Book. |
| 1986 | Attends Fantasy Fest '86 in Key West and Miami Book Fair International, selling Evil Genius and Open Book. |
| 1987 | Finds out IBM has been damning him with faint praise. Moves to Panama City and lives in trailer behind Granny Brown and Uncle Wayne. Turned down for Florida Individual Artist grant and NEA grant, but awarded Certificate of Appreciation by Florida Division of Cultural Affairs for his "contribution to the arts." Writes column "Saunders' Florida" for The Native Sun. |
| 1988 | Works as technical writer for contractors at Navy Base. Crowbar, Popular Reality, publishes Forty. Buys house on Martin Lake. Family move to Panama City. Brenda laid off. Goes to work for Department of Corrections in Wewahitchka, after teaching Spanish and French in the high school she graduated from for a year--the high school Owen dropped out of and Balder graduated from. |
| 1993 | Saunders laid off by third employer in town. Loses house. Declares bankruptcy. Jack and Brenda move into trailer behind Granny. Balder enlists in Marine Corps, to be in a band in New Orleans. Owen joins Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. |
| 1994 | Saunders turned down for state grant. Attends meetings of Literature Panel in Tallahassee. Completes Culls, the first 100 volumes of his stack. |
| 1995 | Saunders works a temporary job at Tyndall AFB. Attends Schmooze II, in Jackson, Michigan. Meets Crowbar, Blaster Al, and John M. Bennett. Meets Roger Jackson, who publishes Some Questions About Henry Miller That No On Ever Asked Me--With Answers, and Erotic Dreams of an Everyday Househusband. |
| 1996 | Saunders looks for a job. Drives to South Florida. Publishes pamphlets. Takes a temporary job in Atlanta with Lucent Technologies. Celebrates Jack Saunders Day August 31, 1996. 25 years, without selling a word to New York or Hollywood. |
| 1997 | Hired permanent at job in Atlanta. Out Your Backdoor offers to make a spot in the back yard for samples of his work. Brenda buys a trailer in Wewahitchka, near her job, at the prison. |
| 1998 | Saunders publishes Beat Poet 1 as a one-shot. Sees that he is not a beat poet, but a beet poet. Owen leaves Doyle and joins the James King Band. He and Jeannie move to Athens. Balder, who has been stationed on Okinawa, gets out of the Marines and moves to Atlanta, to establish Georgia residency, then attend Georgia Tech. Saunders rides his mountain bike to work. No car. |
| 1999 | Brenda sells the trailer in Wewahitchka, quits her job, and moves in with Saunders, in Tucker. She finds a job she likes in Atlanta. Brenda, Balder, and Saunders fly to Seattle for his mother's 80th birthday, and family reunion. Brenda and Saunders go to Folk Fest '99, where they see Woodie Long and Dot. Saunders delivers a eulogy at Potter Brown's memorial service, after Potter dies, unexpectedly. Tells Potter Brown stories afterwards, at Suzette's house in Santa Rosa Beach. |
| 2000 | Saunders and Brenda bid on an abandoned house the VA foreclosed on in an older neighborhood. They win the bid and apply for an FHA mortgage. Owen and Jeannie get married. |
| 2001 | Headliner at Underground Literary Alliance (ULA) Legends of the Underground readings off-off-Broadway. |
| 2002 | Laid off at Lucent. Moves to Parker, into Brenda's old home place. Brenda stays in Atlanta to sell house, work until she's laid off. Saunders goes on early, reduced-benefit social security. Takes a sabbatical year. |
| 2003 | Brenda moves to Parker. Saunders takes a job as a technical writer. Fired for blogging. Ella born. |
| 2004 | Brenda takes job in mental health center. |
| 2005 | Saunders works as grant writer. Fired for blogging, or quits, one step ahead of a shoeshine. LitVision Press publishes Bukowski Never Did This: A Year in the Life of an Underground Writer and His Family. Cashes in annuity he rolled his retirement over into to barnstorm for poetry, selling books. Balder and Jennifer get married. |
| 2006 | Works as custodian at community behavioral health care center. Updates Edward Sapir's essay, "Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business of Getting a Living." Quits when mother dies and leaves him some money. Rowan born. |
| 2007 | Works as handyman at L. A. (Lower Alabama) Folk Life Center. Pottersville Press publishes Postcards from Pottersville, Vol.3, Adventures in the Underground. Writes column for Gulf County Breeze. |
| 2008 |
Saunders laid off from handyman job in April. Goes on unemployment.
Begins writing Discouraged Worker: The Self-Taught Artist in America. |
Chronology
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