Biography
I grew up in Enon, Ohio, a one-stop-light town with a massive Adena Indian mound. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I’m convinced that small towns breed unique creativity in one’s formative years. Most of my closest friends today grew up in Enon, and they’re a creative group of fascinating individuals.
I graduated from Greenon High School in 1995, and then attended Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. I earned my BA in English from WSU in 1999, and started working at the university later that summer. I later earned my MA in English, also from WSU, in 2005.
Through high school and college, I mostly wrote poetry. It wasn’t until my daughter was born in 2005 that I started writing stories. Becoming a father flicked a switch in my brain, and suddenly I had stories to tell the world. First, it was screenplays, then short stories and novels. Most of my fiction is probably best classified as dark fantasy. I definitely incorporate a lot of horror and fantasy elements, especially magical realism. But sometimes I write something that’s straight-up literary fiction. Unfortunately for my fictional characters, most of my ideas are born out of my uncanny, anxious ability to see disaster looming around every corner. I also get a lot of ideas while driving. My writing has won the following awards:
- Dayton Daily News/Antioch Writers’ Workshop Short Story Contest – Best in Show (2012)
- Sinclair Community College Creative Writing Contest – Adult Creative Non-Fiction – 1st Prize/Best in Show (2013)
- Editor’s Award for AMOK! Short Sharp Shocks Vol I Anthology, April Moon Books (2014)
- Wattys 2014 – HQ Love Award courtesy of Wattpad for That Risen Snow (2014)
I’ll always be a writer at heart, but I’m also interested in expanding my artistic talents – especially drawing. I’m a lifelong fan of comic books, and much of my focus for my MA coursework involved visual literacy and the blending of words and pictures. In 2012, I saw the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and that experience reinvigorated my interest in working with both text and art. If it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, a word can also inspire a thousand pictures. But when the two are combined, the possibilities are limited only by the reader’s imagination.
I currently live in Dayton, Ohio. In my free time, I love reading books and comics, rock climbing, sketching, practicing martial arts, traveling to new places, and eating new, delicious food. I also love to cook, especially pasta dishes. My best buddy is my daughter, and we like to play games, draw and color, walk in the woods, visit playgrounds, watch movies, and have other adventures. With adult friends, I do many of the same activities, but with more cursing and drinking.