Jim Potter, retired deputy sheriff, is enjoying the change of pace which allows him more time for writing (that is, when he and his wife, Alex, aren’t line dancing in Hutchinson, KS).
He has just published his third book, Deputy Jennings Meets the Amish after his first novel, Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery, became a personal and literary success. Now he’s busy getting the word out, looking for an expanded audience of readers.
Jim really enjoys creating his fictional characters and getting to know them well enough so that they can interact. Once the dialogue begins, the author likes to say, he can sit back and transcribe their conversations!
Alex, a sculptor, has mirrored this creative spirit by creating sculptures of characters in the novels. These three-dimensional people crowd the house—which resembles a fine art gallery.
In the novella, Deputy Jennings Meets the Amish, you’ll meet Deputy Sheriff Tom Jennings, a caring cop who is a patrol officer for the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Office. He doesn’t understand the Old Order Amish and they don’t understand him.
After being assigned to investigate the theft of soil from a county ditch, Jennings meets Mrs. Rosanna Borntrager Yoder. Rosanna and Adam (her husband) help Jennings begin to learn how the Amish and the English are different, and alike.
The four core values that are embedded in the story include: faith, family, community, and simplicity.
Deputy Jennings first appeared in Taking Back the Bullet. The obese officer is described as “a mutant Idaho potato in a jiggling gelatin suit.” Other characters in the novel are James Odessa-Smith, with his schizoaffective disorder; and young Suanna Morningcloud, a person with albinism, half Nez Perce Indian and half Caucasian.
The three main characters, who meet in a Kansas community during a botched bank robbery, are searching for their identities and culture, asking themselves: “Who am I and where do I belong?”
Due to the tragedy and trauma of a single bullet, their lives are changed forever.
The multi-layered stories in Taking Back the Bullet explore the themes of stigma, identity, and self-discovery. The novel is an escape into reality.
Potter’s first book, Cop in the Classroom: Lessons I’ve Learned, Tales I’ve Told, is a police memoir. It has an abundance of police stories from his professional career as a deputy sheriff and school resource officer. The thirty-three chapters give an insider’s look at the emotional experiences behind the badge—and life lessons for us all.
Under the Radar, Race at School, Potter’s first play, has been used at appreciating diversity workshops and for classroom studies due to its thought-provoking points of view on race and culture.
