About Me

My author picture

I'm a writer!  It's a zen thing.  A mantra.  A dream. A way of life.  It's a fine madness that draws you in and makes you sit at a keyboard, plunking out words one letter at a time. You wake in the middle of the night thinking what if a meteor crashed into my house. Hmmm?  Or perhaps, how to commit murder and get away with it?  What if you were a foot soldier during the French Revolution? Got to write it down and see how it ends.

I started writing as a teenager, penning fan fiction before it was called that.  My heros were Napoleon Solo in the Man from U.N.C.L.E., James Bond and the two guys from the I Spy TV show.  I mean when you're sixteen in the '60s, growing up to be a spy is every boy's dream, next to piloting a space ship through the depths of far galaxies.

But eventually you need to get serious and do something with your life. Get married. Have a family and a career. Make money. I did all this. I have a lovely wife and two wonderful daughters.  I worked a number of jobs including house painter, carpet cleaner and lab technician testing construction materials. (Now there's a dream job!). I went to college three times and eventually became an Electrical Engineer. That led to titles such as a Test Engineer, Design Engineer, Director of Engineering, Applications Engineer and Quality Engineer.

On bridge near hotel in Thun, Switzerland

I got to travel a bit with those jobs.  I've been to China, Taiwan, Mexico and Switzerland.  My trips to Asia gave me a well honed skill with chop sticks, love of oolong tea, and the experience of eating one hundred year-old eggs. (Actually I tried stranger things while there but will not elaborate for the sake of the squeamish.) In Mexico I learned three important rules. One: don't drink the water, two: ice is made from water and three: if it has alcohol in it it, you can ignore rules one and two.  Despite my meticulous efforts to avoid the water, I still got Montezuma's Revenge, probably one of the nastiest things I have ever had. The Alps in Switzerland were perhaps the most awesome things I had ever seen. Every turn and view was a post card scene.

My writing began a few jobs back to fill out lunch hours.  My first novel was called Psi Waves, a science fiction story that still sits stashed away on my hard drive somewhere. Later I wrote evenings while the family did things like watch TV and play on computers. My next two books Penelope and The Birthday Curse and Penelope and The Ghost's Treasure landed me an agent and eventually got published a few years back. I later added Penelope and The Movie Star and Penelope and The Christmas Spirit.  I had one grandmother who wrote and told me she reads the Christmas story every holiday to her grand kids.

I wrote Claws of the Griffin around 2010. This was my first foray into a Southern Murder Mystery.  Basically a rich playboy goes to poor rural South and gets involved with an ill-tempered moonshiner, power-hungry business man, love-starved country girl, lustful trophy wife, lady sheriff, clever country boy, and psychopathic killer. I wrote the story to be a fast past who-done-it which should keep you guessing until the end.

My next published book is Strigoi, The Blood Bond.  This one is still a murder mystery in a paranormal/horror setting.  Alex Regal finds himself trapped in a town run by a vampire. Finding the killer of his "cousin" is the only way he can escape. This one has werewolves, a ghost and lots of chilling action. Yep, I betcha don't guess who the killer is in this one either.

So what's coming up?  March of 2015 my latest novel is due out from Champagne Books.  This one has a down and out investigative reporter, a mentally disturbed psychic and Goth type girl who may be a witch on a cold case murder, trying to find the killer and solve the disappearance of her daughter.  The book is tentatively titled The Witch's Daughter. Stay tuned and I will let you know more about it debut.

Steampunk Persona

I don't always write.  Some of my other interests include playing games on my PC, cooking and baking, listening to folk music, reading, watching gritty movies and having fun with Steampunk friends.

That is my writing life from start to finish with some stops in-between.  I have no regrets, except that I didn't start writing sooner.  I wonder how my life would have turned out if I'd kept writing as a teen.  I'm back on track and loving the literary scene.