This Month's Featured Articles

New York - The American Revolution Part 4

Wendy Elkis Class of 1977

From the beginning, New York was a popular port city.  The harbor was used as a main port dating back to the 1600s.  At that time, trade was centered around  bartering for furs. Around 1625, the Dutch West India Company established themselves at the harbor in what was then known as New Amsterdam.  It was such a popular port that by the 1650s, you could find people from around theNew York Harbor 1600s world, and you could hear approximately 18 different languages. Commerce kept growing year after year, regardless of who was in control of the area. 

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James Wittenborg, Class of 1974

Hi. My name is James Wittenborg, a proud alumnus of Hicksville High School’s class of 74. Although it’s been a long journey to where I am now, Hicksville and the friendships I made over fifty years ago still play a part in my life today. In fact, I’ve made it a point to mention names of classmates and Hicksville landmarks in every novel I’ve written! So how did a student in the 70’s with no interest at all in reading books wind up writing novels? It was something that just came about recently in my journey. After a couple of years in college, followed by a couple of years in the military, I found myself working as a technician at a remote satellite tracking station in Thule, Greenland. This was my introduction to space stuff. After a few years there, I was back in the US, and on a random drive around the country, I stopped in Houston and visited the Johnson Space Center. I knew right away that this was where I wanted to be. After a few phone calls, I secured an interview on a Thursday, was hired on Friday, found a furnished apartment on Saturday, and showed up on Monday for my first day of work. After sitting on console supporting the second Space Shuttle flight in November 1981, I was hooked. After the Challenger accident, I left Houston and relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, to work at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Seven years later, amid a contract change, I packed up and accepted a job at the Canadian Space Agency outside Montreal, Canada. A wife, three kids, three dogs, and three moves later, I found myself back in Huntsville, Alabama! And today, I still work as a Senior Systems Engineer supporting the Space Launch System for the Artemis Program.

Ok, so how and when did the writing start? It started innocently enough after a conversation I had with a colleague about the assassination of JFK. We both had our opinions of who we thought was responsible, and afterward, I thought, what if I had the ability to be back there at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, at one o’clock, knowing it was about to happen? I could see with my own eyes what really happened. We already have books and movies about time machines and time travel, but what if, through our dreams, we could visit the past? This became the premise of my first three novels: the Dream Traveler trilogy. This is not science fiction, but rather delves into the vast unknown of what our minds may be capable of.

The fourth and most recent novel is called The Five. It’s a standalone book about five men from Long Island in their late forties who have known each other their entire lives. Almost every year, they get together for a guy’s getaway trip, but on their latest trip to upstate New York, sinister secrets of a small town threaten not only the friendship among them, but also their freedom to get home. In addition to this book being published this past November, it was also released as an audiobook in March of 2026. You can read more about my story and the books, and make any purchases on my website: www.jameswittenborg.com.   

Click on each title to read about my novels: 

• InSight
• InVision
• The Station
• The Five