The Author

We are all made of stars and stories. Mine opened in Tennessee, a child of the seventies and teen in the eighties. Like most of us then, I frequently spent days outside when I could, riding bikes all over town, a misfit troupe of BMX and banana seats, building forts and listening to Sabbath on vinyl. In the sixth grade, I found fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, and my first rock concert. Authors like Tolkien, Herbert, and Wolfe sparked my interest early on and fueled my imagination. I spent some time drawing and writing to take part often as a dungeon master and half-elven ranger. I also decided being the next great rock drummer should get some consideration. Junior high and high school added sports, cassette tapes, cars, the occasional gig as a fledgling rock drummer, and the start of something amazing: video games. Pong entered my life, followed closely by an Atari and then a Commodore 64. It was then that I fully emerged from my nerd cocoon and became interested in technology, writing my first program and exploring the Great Underground Empire in Zork.

After high school, I took a significant detour. Instead of entering college, I served. I enlisted in the military at seventeen and quietly disappeared after graduation. During that period, I deployed to every conflict. I spent much of my late eighties and early nineties in Central America and the Middle East. 

Once I finished my tours, I returned home to college, where I tried to make sense of the world by majoring in philosophy, along with an added minor in creative writing. Poetry and short stories gave me time to mold my writing skill while getting absorbed in symbolic logic, language, epistemology and metaphysics. My love of music got me a job selling instruments, and I managed a few bands to pay the bills. 

A scholarship carried me to the Rocky Mountains for graduate school. I met my wife of twenty-five years, while we were both teaching assistants in the same department. With our theses defended, we stayed for almost a decade working in technology, bouncing around start-ups, caught in the frantic pace of emerging programming languages and innovations of the late nineties. Transitioning from a two-digit to a four-digit year across monumental lines of code saved the world at the turn of the century and allowed us a few more years to enjoy the scenery. It was a tough place to stay confined to offices. We spent free time on trails and in tents with a panoramic backdrop that was incredible and naturally inspiring.

The pending birth of our first son led us back east. We stopped in Tennessee for about a decade before meandering to the mid-west once our second son was born. Two grown kids, four cats and an Akita later, we have made Ohio home for over fifteen years. We both stayed in technology, although with different interests, me moving from being a coder to leading coders. After a rewarding career, I was fortunate to take the chance to pursue writing full time a few years ago. I dabble in programming as a hobby now and still have a drum kit (along with a couple of guitars) to play when desired. And yes, I have an even larger collection of d20s with which to enjoy adventures. Video games have kept their hold also, providing a masterful level of mental absorption with the many worlds I have explored solo and with friends. More importantly, forty-two is still the answer. When not writing, I enjoy spending time with family, friends, on hikes, playing games, reading, or in the gym trying to stave off my aging physique until I get those cellular-level repair robots completed.