From a young age, I was in love with the premises of fantasy novels and comic books: amazing creatures, fantastic heroes, and magical powers that existed right beneath our noses. I created detailed storylines to act out with my toys, often updating the stories until I was satisfied with the plots.
My love of writing began in my senior year of high school, when I had to write short stories for my English class. I wrote the first one in ten minutes, because it was due the next class period and I had completely forgotten about it. (Note to students: I do NOT recommend this!) The story was about a cockroach who’d been squished by a stinky pair of running shoes, only to have the odors from the shoes make him grow to seven feet tall and gain intelligence. The roach and the owner of the shoes engaged in a battle of wits to determine who would get to keep the house.
That story was greeted with laughter and applause by my classmates and teacher, and my subsequent assignments garnered even more positive responses. At that point, I began to seriously consider writing as a hobby.
After graduating high school in 1994, I began attending Florida Southern College, where my newfound love of writing was strengthened by the English Department. I had never really been taught to write, and their grading policies forced me to really pay attention to what I was doing. I don’t know what it’s like there now, but at the time, the department’s grading policy was simple: every grammatical error was a one-letter-grade drop.
In 1998, I earned my Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, double-majoring in Secondary Education. You read that correctly. I don’t have an English degree, or a Creative Writing degree. I only took the required three English courses. I started college with the intention of being a high school German teacher, and was triple-majoring in German, Math, and Education. When the college dropped the German major, so did I, and settled on teaching math as a career.
After graduating in 1998, I spent the next nineteen years teaching math to teenagers. Over that time, I taught all grade levels from 4th up through college. Along the way, I earned my Master of Science in Education, and began setting my sights on transitioning from instruction to instructional technology.
At the end of my nineteenth year, my director offered me the opportunity to have my dream position, and I leaped at it. I now train teachers, troubleshoot pesky devices, learn every program my director purchases for the school, and do whatever else necessary to support our I.T. Director in keeping our technology working. In addition to those duties, I am also the Computer Science Department Chair, and teach some Computer Science classes.
I am a certified geek, and love Superman, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and other sci-fi/comic book characters and stories.
A native Floridian, I live in beautiful Broward County, Florida, with my wife and son, where I am continuing my career as an educator and diligently working on getting these stories out of my brain and onto my computer screen.