I grew up in St. Louis, MO, and was a good kid for the most part. Like other kids, I cruised around the neighborhood on a big wheel and occasionally got into trouble. I never got a time-out, though. Back in the 1970s, they didn’t have time-outs. Instead, when I misbehaved, I was swatted upon the legs with a switch and told the old line, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
I was always a writer. I got my start by scribbling down short stories and silly poems. By age 15, I was published in a school district journal. By age 17, I was an award-winning editor of my high school newspaper. At 18, I was freelance writing for magazines and had a career as a Sports Writer which lasted throughout my college years and shortly thereafter.
The decade of 1992 through 2002 was an adventurous time for this swashbuckling writer. For four years, I worked in the travel business and frequented exotic locales like Hong Kong, Barcelona, New York, Rome, Copenhagen, Paris, and even Morristown, NJ. I’ve been lost in the middle of Austria, been attacked by a yak, slept soundly in a haunted castle, boarded and set sail on the wrong cruise ship, almost got a tattoo from Cher’s tattooist, and once carried $40,000 in cash to a party (nothing illegal). I heard the phrase da bomb from a Japanese girl in Rome before it hit the U.S., thus being an early adopter of the phrase back home.
In 1995, I moved to Atlanta to help plan the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Super fun! After that, I moved to Chicago where I wrote and performed improv comedy while taking classes at Second City. At one infamous open mic night, I was instructed by the crowd to ride a giant large mouth bass while singing “Ring of Fire.” And I killed. Then for a few years, I was a booking agent for jazz bands in St. Louis.
In 2001, I moved out west to San Francisco, arriving just after the dot-com bubble burst, barely missing probable fame and fortune. It was like arriving at a party just after the cops broke it up. Nevertheless, I found San Francisco fascinating, invigorating, and incredibly expensive. After all my meanderings of the decade, I finally felt like I was home. It was there that I found peace, happiness, creative expression, and, best of all, I met the most beautiful girl in all of San Francisco. I won her over and was lucky enough to marry her. In 2004, I launched my freelance writing business, completely shattering the old myth of the “starving writer.”
On the personal side, I have a wide array of interests. I’m addicted to self-improvement and enhancing my creative process. I’m naturally curious about the world and my place in it. Like most writers, I’m a voyeur of the human condition. I have psychic abilities I don’t tap into for fear of the power I would possess. I’m fond of dogs and they are fond of me as well. My favorite color is green and my favorite snack food is popcorn. My favorite number is 44 because I like the idea that if I lose one 4 there’s another one there to replace it. I’m a jazz buff, a book fiend, an art lover, a baseball fan, and an appreciator of anything old and rustic. I like epic movies and quirky ones as well. I wonder about the cosmos and am always full of gratitude for being alive in this moment. I love my wife and kids more than anything in the world. Like the tower of Pisa, I tend to lean a little bit off-kilter. I prefer peculiar over ordinary, old-fashioned over modern, mystery over understanding.
I’ve been called a “good egg” many times in his life, and I make it a point to remain sunny side up as much as possible.
I live in Oregon with my lovely wife and two sons.