Mr. Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen currently lives on a working ranch in Central Texas. He earlier lived in Oklahoma and Arkansas. He spent 25 years as a popular Philosophy Professor at Central Texas College in Killeen, Texas and was known by his colleagues as a renaissance man because of his ability to enliven the conversation on an endless number of topics. Although Jenny Kissed Me! came about quite by accident, writing was not foreign to Allen who had earlier entertained the thought of a novel. Through the years,...See more

Thomas Allen currently lives on a working ranch in Central Texas. He earlier lived in Oklahoma and Arkansas. He spent 25 years as a popular Philosophy Professor at Central Texas College in Killeen, Texas and was known by his colleagues as a renaissance man because of his ability to enliven the conversation on an endless number of topics. Although Jenny Kissed Me! came about quite by accident, writing was not foreign to Allen who had earlier entertained the thought of a novel. Through the years, he had frequently been known to quote impromptu poems-anything from Ogden Nash to Shakespeare-depending on what triggered his brain. One day a casual comment from his wife prompted a reciting of the romantic poem "Jenny Kissed Me." Her reaction gave him a story line and a reason to write about a forever kind of love, one like they had shared for 48 years. Twelve years later he took an early retirement, in part to write the novel. A motivating force was the desire to produce a classic love story that would appeal to true romantics. The novel's early years, largely autobiographical, are set in the author's home town of San Marcos, Texas in the late 1950s and early 1960s. See less