I've been writing for a long time. I started writing poetry when I was very young (like, seven) and progressed fairly quickly to short stories. I wrote my first full-length novel (horrid, by the way) when I was 17.

During high school, I won several writing competitions including national awards for history and mythology. I was also a national champion in Greek and Latin mythology. (See where the story ideas come from?)

I attended college in Tennessee, where I developed an overwhelming love for UT football. A one-act play I wrote for a master class while in college was produced - \"Puppets\".

It was only then that I realized my education did absolutely nothing for my immediate professional future. Given a choice between law school and summer stock theatre, I took theatre and remained in the acting/directing/designing profession for ten years. This career took me all over the eastern United States.

Eventually, however, I got tired of living other people's words (except for Shakespeare, naturally) and decided to try something different.

After a car accident that left me unable to work for three years (and left me with untold medical bills and a very successful disc replacement operation) I began reworking the first book I wrote. It has since developed into a projected ten-book high fantasy series, of which eight books are finished. (For those of you keeping count, that's about 2 million words) I also started a second mainstream project last year, a two-book dark fantasy series currently in rewrites.

I am married, live in southeastern Ohio, and have two teenaged daughters and many, many, many cats--one of whom is perched stubbornly on my lap as I try to write this. Just for kicks, their names are Satan, Impy, Dante, Gabriel, Pixie, Meowkovitch, Crookshanks, Volunteer, Elf, Muggle, Asphodel and Biscuit-the kitten(obviously, those are the cats and not my daughters).

In my spare time, all six hours of it a week, I enjoy reading, old Katharine Hepburn movies, new sci-fi/fantasy flicks, a mean game of euchre, numerous vodka martinis, (chilled, straight up, only a teensy splash of vermouth with both an olive and a lime wedge) and Rolling Rock beer

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