1. Tell us about yourself and your most current project/s?
Well, I’m a full time teacher, part time editor, and I’ve been writing for most of my adult life. I have two current projects - the one I’m marketing, Extinction Dream, a book I like to describe as the intersection of Event Horizon and Three Body Problem, and the novel I’m currently revising for a spring 2026 release called Dead Hearts Eat the Light about two young girls trapped in a bunker alone by their parents during what may be the apocalypse. Since it’s the one out now - Extinction Dream is about Markus Cole, a soldier deployed to orbital duty, a station he believes to be a cushy research gig, only to discover upon arrival that he is being deployed to the front line of a secret war against an alien species that attacks telepathically - and that no one has ever survived. It’s a story set on eco-dystopian Earth in a not-too-distant future, and it’s largely themed about our tendency to be our own worst enemy.
2. Where did the inspiration/idea come from this project?
I can’t say there was any one inspiration. The story started with an image of a soldier strapped to a chair watching his own nightmares on a bank of screens and a loose idea that this was somehow a form of combat. As the principle draft emerged, I began to draw from Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem, the idea of a fourteen dimensional attack and how we’d not even be able to recognize we were being attacked really resonated with me, and so I began the main development of the narrative seeking to make the aliens truly alien in not just how they fought, but how they interacted with out reality.
3. What does the writing process look like for you?
I think of it as a process of iterative rehearsal. I don’t really take notes and I don’t really do any outlining. I chart out a couple main points that MUST be reached to give the book its central structure, and then I just write. However - as I do so, I also spend much of my mental time running through variations of upcoming scenes, sometimes in my head, sometimes out loud. I think through several different versions of ‘the next scene’ until I reach one that I feel is pretty realized, and then I sit down and compose it formally. Of course, that means I often need to do some rearranging of the narrative, fleshing out of some components like backstory, and I do the typical revisions of voice, image, dialogue etc.
4. How do you handle writer’s block?
Truthfully, I don’t really get writer’s block. I keep several projects running in tandem and I cycle through them if I pause in one piece. Right now, I’ve got three book length projects in different stages.
5. How do you feed your creativity when feeling drained?
Research. It’s the one constant to everything I do. I’m always reading papers, articles, books - as disparately as I can. I have a lot of points of interest that range from space, to tech, to medicine, to caves, to all sorts of animals, to Japanese culture, and more. The idea is that I always have a lot of different things to pull from and recombine - and that helps keep new, different ideas emerging.
6. What advice would you give writers who feel stuck or uninspired?
Read, but not just in a narrow niche. Writing is an omni-subject field. You can pull from anything - but you have to know something about a lot of things to keep variety present. Read about other professions. Read about other cultures and histories. In the vary least - these can be parts of your character histories.
7. Have you ever thought about giving up writing? If so, what pulled you back?
All the time. I pause when I feel like I need to, but it’s also just something I do. I don’t know that I really could permanently stop.
8. How do you keep your voice or ideas fresh over time?
That’s one I’d address with the answer above about research. Couple that with reading broadly in creative works too. I read fiction, non-fiction, plays, and poetry. I watch movies and shows, play video games. Any possible source of narrative and any possible source of information is fair game.
9. What do you wish more people understood about the creative process?
That while some people do have a level of natural talent, SO much of it is simply a matter of practice and self-discipline.
10. What is the most honest thing you’ve ever written - and did it scare you?
The opening story of my collection In Those Fading Stars is entitled “Before You Fade Away.” The whole story is a metaphor for helpless I felt when I discovered that my son had been abused by his first grade teacher in the classroom. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and I kind of hate that.
Where can my audience find you?
Pretty much everywhere! I’m certainly on the major platforms like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com - and you can order my work through nearly any bookstore.