About me

It’s not like I always knew I was a writer.

When I was a kid, I very much wanted to be an artist when I reached adult years; during adolescence, I figured I’d either become a rock star or pro wrestler (naturally). Through all the fickle flights of fancy, however, one constant held: I loved stories, from the tales of high school mischief my dad recounted upon request, to those books I read by the pile whenever I had a spare minute.

In high school, during a kind-of debate class that counted for something like an eighth of a credit, our instructor had us students take an outside-the-box personality test. Mine hit all the notes I expected – introverted, nervous, prone to fits of internalized struggle  – but the analysis came with an instruction sheet, a list of career suggestions that suited my personality type, and at the top of this list was “writer.” While the test wasn’t enough to make me shove my knock-off Stratocaster and underpowered amp to the back of my closet, I did tuck the notion away for later consideration.

Upon enrolling in college, I had no idea what to do with myself. The earlier interest in pro wrestling was as present as my 24-inch pythons (not present at all), and chances of rock stardom seemed pretty slim. I called upon the memory of that personality test and declared myself a journalism major, a choice that lasted one semester and a mass media class full of aspiring news anchors. I spent the next year hiding in the art building as a photography student, a field of study I enjoyed and excelled at, but the pragmatist in me glanced the looming specter of digital picture-making on the horizon and wasn’t mad about it—I didn’t harbor a deep love for darkrooms. Through all this,  I continued to read voraciously, and in a critical moment decided to combine my passion for books with the by-then pressing need to declare a permanent major. When I discovered my school offered an English degree with concentration in literature and writing, the choice seemed easy: This is what I wanted to do. And I did it well, graduating summa cum laude in 2005.

My writing career has taken a circuitous path. Early on, I worked at a publishing company where I was tasked with editing computer software guide books, writing press releases and composing jacket copy, as well as performing basic marketing duties. One October day, the boss announced to our small staff that operations were moving to Boston; rather than accepting a position in a city my salary couldn’t afford, I opted to launch a family-run coffee shop, a setting I envisioned as ideal for a young writer establishing a freelance writing career. And it was—I immediately picked up work with the Cincinnati Enquirer, an interesting opportunity for a one-time journalism major. Then a new, weekly publication appeared on newsstands and, a few weeks later, rolled into our coffee shop – a young writer was compiling a story about area coffee shops and sought to include ours. In a strange twist of fate, we captured the writer’s attention and what was intended as a standard story on caffeine depots morphed into a cover story about my wife and I, and our business. Our 15 minutes of fame were exciting, but a further benefit emerged weeks later, when the reporter offered me a shot writing for the publication. This began my 6-year role as contributor to CiN Weekly, a freelance job that found me interviewing scores of musicians, writing restaurant reviews and tackling community issues. I wrote for CiN Weekly until its parent company ceased publication.

The years since CiN have seen me writing for such publications as Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, Guide to Literary Agents, The Baby Guide, eHow and Akron Life magazine, where I published The Gamut, a regular column that focused on whatever had my attention in the moment. Topics included sunsets, existential uncertainty and light carpentry. It was fun, but I ended the column to focus on other opportunities in late 2016.

To further complicate matters, after a decade of not composing fiction in favor of writing for immediate compensation, I found myself itching to tell stories with little-to-no basis in reality. More as writing exercise than career change, I wrote a young adult novel about a depressed kid who accidentally makes friends and stumbles into a meaningful life, and dammit if I didn’t enjoy the experience so much that I did it again, authoring another young adult novel, which landed me a contract with literary agent Kirsten Carlton of the Prospect Agency , who sadly retired from representation in 2018. The book, tentatively titled ​The Deep Cuts E.P., is currently out for consideration.

Through all this, it’s only recently occurred to me that I’m allowed to call myself a “writer.” I’ve been many things – an editor, a barista-entrepreneur, a farmer (that’s a long story) – but I never allowed myself to wear the name badge that says: “Hello, I’m WRITER.” Until now. I’ve written literally hundreds of articles, some that people even read and  (I hope) enjoyed, and I retain ill-advised hopes of someday having a book with an appealing cover on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. I fight with a blinking cursor daily, and I expect I’ll do it ’til I die. Because I’m a writer, and that’s what writers do.