It took me four years to research, write, and revise my first novel, The Shadow Catchers, and it would be another two years before the book was published by St. Martin's Press.  The dream of being a writer has been with me for a considerably longer time.

By the time I was five years old, I'd mapped out exactly what I was going to do with my life: I would be (in no particular order) a Superhero, an Astronaut, and a Mad Scientist. Two years later, I'd added Actor and Cartoonist to the list. By the end of the fifth grade, I'd finally decided that I could accomplish all of these by telling stories for a living. The darker, the better.

I'm not exactly sure when my fascination with the shadow side began. Probably with that collection of Batman comics.  When I was eight years old, I read George Orwell's Animal Farm, thinking it was a happy kiddie story like Charlotte's Web. To this day, whenever I see one of those movies about talking pigs who save the farm, I remember Napoleon the hog sending Boxer the horse to the butcher's in exchange for a barrel of whiskey. And I go make myself a nice ham sandwich with pork rinds.

I was born in Mobile, Alabama, on March 10, 1964, the youngest of six children. My parents made sure we all got an education. After high school I attended the University of the South, a liberal arts school owned by the Episcopal Church. Popularly known as Sewanee, the college allowed me to pursue all my interests, as well as helping to develop new ones. After earning my B.A. I studied Theatre in Great Britain and Ireland on a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, then received my M.F.A. in Playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University.

My first real job was in the marketing department at Universal Pictures, where I got to do just about everything, from publicity to speechwriting and creative design. In 1994 I helped start Digital Planet, one of the first Internet design firms to specialize in entertainment marketing. My business partner and I had already created the first interactive movie press kit (for Sneakers) and were soon designing sites and DVDS for all the major studios, as well as corporate clients like Intel and the United States Postal Service. We also produced the Internet's first fully animated series, Madeleine's Mind. In 1998, Digital Planet was acquired by a corporate parent. I stayed on for two years as L.A. creative director, then took a brief stint at another company, DNA Studio. I left the business not long after the dotcom bust of 2000. I'm very happy I had my California adventure...and I'm not sorry it ended. I knew I had to move on if I was going to make my fiction career happen.

After four challenging and invigorating years teaching Literature and Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama, I decided to devote myself to writing full-time. Currently I'm living on the Alabama Gulf Coast, working on my third novel while preparing for the Fall 2007 publication of Chillwater Cove.