I’m a native Californian, having spent most of my youth in the Suburbia of Los Angeles…a pleasant if undistinguished little town called Placentia. I spent four memorable years at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where I earned a bachelor’s degree (cum laude even) in Medieval Studies. People invariably ask “why Medieval Studies?” The answer is simple: I love the Middle Ages. I still do. It didn’t matter if my studies had any direct bearing upon my future career or not, I simply relished the opportunity to spend four years in an idyllic country setting studying something I really enjoyed. Everyone should have such an opportunity.

After graduation, I bummed around awhile, working the odd job here and there, trying to figure out just what it was I wanted to do. It was during this time that I became interested in the concepts of comparative mythology, primarily through the works of Joseph Campbell. While indulging this interest, I thought I figured out my future and started graduate school at UCLA, pursuing a degree in Folklore & Mythology. After time, I realized that it wasn’t for me, though: I loved the subject, but I wasn’t enjoying studying it in an academic environment.

I have had a small but constant presence on the web since the mid-1990s, my most successful online project the publication Phantastes, a journal for writers of fantasy fiction, that featured articles by and interviews with many well-known writers, and was listed three years in a row in the Years’ Best Fantasy and Horror anthology.

For a time, I made my living as a freelance writer and editor. My favorite job during those years was, because it combined both my career and my hobbies, was working as a designer on the online, text-based roleplaying game, Castle Marrach. As the chief architect of the characters and story arc, I take some pride in the continued success of the game, now entering its tenth year.

In the spring of 2006 I started working as a freelance instructional writer for Stampington & Company, a publisher of arts and crafts magazines. Less than a year later, I was brought on board as managing editor of, not one, but three brand new magazines: Artful Blogging, Life Images and Artists’ Cafe. Immersion in this world of artistry and visual expression has changed my life considerably. Before now, art and crafts were always a fun diversion, a way to make something pretty and unique and special, but always a sideline to what I considered the primary mode of creative expression: words. Granted, I’m still much better with words than I am with camera or paint, but I’m learning to trust my visual instincts in ways I never did before, and enjoying the process of art as I discover a new side of myself.

To say that I am a hopeful novelist is probably not a surprise at this point (who isn’t ?) and I usually have several writing projects ongoing at once. I’ve two stories published online. I also continue to be interested in interactive narrative, and hope to experiment further in this area, discovering new ways to tell stories with the aid of technology. That takes things up to about now. What’s to come is a work in progress.