This early failure did not,
however, deter me from a career in the creative arts—a draft notice from my
local Army recruiter was the deterrent. After two years of university studies,
I spent four years as an Air Traffic Controller in Uncle Sam’s Navy. That was
long enough for me to decide I didn’t want to be an Air Traffic Controller for
the rest of what would surely be my short life if I chose that path. A degree
in education and two years teaching middle school weren’t the answer to my life’s
goal questions either. After spending a few years in sales and marketing, I
settled into a career in human resources, specializing in organizational
development, which involved a lot of written communication.
While between jobs I took a
course in writing fiction and rediscovered my passion for telling a good story.
I handed in my first writing assignment to my instructor and asked her what
genre` my story would align with. She said, “It’s a mystery to me.” So, encouraged
by those words of wisdom, I forged ahead toward my new life goal and wrote my
first mystery novel, The Dead Girl
Reunion.
A friend once asked me how I
could transition from the realm of human resources, where I focused on helping
people achieve success through better communication, to writing murder
mysteries. My response was that you can’t sit across the table from some
frequent-flyer head case, who constantly makes the lives of his co-workers
miserable, and not say to yourself, “I should just kill this guy.” Then your
mind wanders and you start thinking about how you could do it, how to get rid
of the body, and the next thing you know—a story is born.
I once again live in Corvallis,
Oregon, having moved back home from Seattle with my wife, Liz, to write full-time.
(My relocation from Seattle had nothing to do with any hypothetical or alleged homicides
as described above.) I don’t have a dog—or a cat—or a goldfish—to captivate
your heart with a cute picture, so I hope you will enjoy my stories. They’re
all I have to give you.