Look and Listen

Biography

A native of Lorain, Ohio and residing in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, I spend my days working as a project manager for a local Web design firm, making sure that the customers are happy and their sites up on time. Then there's my writing side. I actually started scribbling short stories in my senior year of high school; nothing substantial, really. In fact, I don't even think I kept any of it. By the time I hit Cleveland State University, I started writing for the student newspaper, The Cauldron, thanks to two guys willing to give me a shot: Pete Chakerian and Bill Thompson. From there, I began covering high school sports for the Morning Journal in Lorain. When I left CSU in 1997, I was confident that I'd be a professional journalist. I was wrong, and after a five-month stint as the Norwalk Bureau Chief at the Morning Journal in 1998 (something apparently they've never forgotten), I went back to Cleveland State and took over as Editor-in-Chief of the Cauldron in 2000. Writing fiction never entered back into my mind until 2003, when I found myself with some free time after shuttering FireRollie.com, the Web site I created to get rid of then-CSU men's basketball coach Rollie Massimino. And for the next three years, I wrote Flagrant Foul, a novel about a college kid trying to keep his head above water after getting a shot at the job he wanted. During that time and afterward, I wrote short stories based on characters from the book. That eventually get into another novella, Dilemma, that serves as the first in what I've dubbed the Stories from the Forester, the fictional student newspaper that serves as a backdrop for entire series.

Inspiration

After I got out of journalism, I found myself still wanting to write, but with no real medium to turn to. I think my experience with FireRollie.com actually inspired me to keep on writing. Coincidentally, I soon after started reading the Harry Potter books. That got me to thinking that I could really get into writing fiction. And I haven't stopped.