Growing up, I started telling stories as early as three or four years old. My imagination was so healthy, I am told, that I often acted out full-scale battles between good and evil in the yard . . . by myself. In classic boy style, they were of course violent, causing some concern for my mother. Fortunately, I turned out okay.

As early as second grade, writing was a highlight in my education. And that worked out, since while being home schooled, most of my learning was obtained through reading and writing. And while I even looked forward to research papers, I relished most the chance for creative writing. Despite this enjoyment, I never tackled anything as ambitious as a novel in High School.

After two years of working toward a BA in Accounting and competing for the varsity swim team at Penn State University, something snapped. One summer afternoon, I grabbed a notebook and a pen, sat down at the picnic table on my parents back deck and started writing my first novel. As it would happen, I still haven’t finished that story, but it re-awakened in me the desire to write fiction.

Fast forward more than ten years, several experimental young adult fiction projects, many vacations from disciplined writing, and I have at last begun publishing an epic fantasy series I've been working on for some time, “The Reaper’s Seed.” The story will likely be four books in all. And, of course, I have several other novels in partial states of completion, on paper and in my head. As a part-time writer, that’s life.

Stats
Birth Year: 1980
Height: 5’ 7"
Weight: 150ish lbs
Born In: Lansdowne, PA
Lives In: Honey Brook, PA
College: Pennsylvania State University
Family: Wife Lania, daughter Emiliana, sons Rowan & Leeland, and Baxter the Beagle

Favorites
Food: Man-sized salads, anything grown in my garden, baked goods, my wife’s Chicken Pot Pie
Drink: Water, Coffee, a taste of wine or beer
Music: wide-range appreciator: Civil Wars, Cold Play, Switchfoot, Fleet Foxes, Adele, The Beatles, Reilly
Books: The Bible, East of Eden, The Reason for God, Classics, Harry Potter, C.S. Lewis everything
Movies: Inception, Castaway, Cindarella Man, Les Miserables, LOTR, Crash, The Way Back, just as a sampling
Interests/Hobbies: Gardening & Health, swimming, running, a little guitar & song writing, fishing, politics
Free Time: If I leave any - walks with the family, watching our most recent favorite TV show with Lania

---