I was born and raised in Kentucky. After slogging through a year of college, I signed up for eight years in the US Navy as a nuclear machinist and got to sail the vast Pacific. From camping in the Canadian wilderness to blundering into an anti-American rally in the Middle East, I can’t stop exploring the Earth – the wildlife, the natural and man-made edifices and the fascinating array of cultures.

When not travelling, I brew my own ale, tend my orchard (haphazardly), paint canvasses, keep a little ceramics studio, bake my own whole wheat bread, sew Ma’s church clothes and generally continue my education at my log cabin in a marvelous hardwood forest.

Oh yeah, I have a strange compulsion to put characters who have done no harm to me through arduous trials and quite risky endeavors. I figure since I put them into stories set about 100 years from now, I’ll be long gone before they can hunt me down me for torturing them.