Born in Lake Tahoe,
California, I relocated to Washington State in 1976 when my family took
up farming. Upon graduating from a small, rural, public high school, I
earned a B.A. in English at Washington State University. In 1990, I
completed my M.A. at Boston College and later went on to earn a
doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. While
working towards my graduate degrees, I taught at Boston College, Greensboro College and
at UNC Greensboro.
In 1996, I turned down a tenure track position at a Midwest university to take a position as an English instructor at an international school in Rio de Janeiro. From 1997 to 2005, I was a member of the Upper School faculty at Escola Americana where I taught IB English, Theory of Knowledge, American Literature, British Literature, and 9th & 10th grade Humanities. For three years, I served as IB Coordinator and I was a lead writer on the Curriculum Review Committee and the English Curriculum Committee.
When not teaching, I often combine my love of travel with my love of writing. Considering travel essential “research” for good writing, I have been to Western Samoa, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and many regions of Brazil and my current home country of Taiwan. I have hiked the Inca Trail, floated the Amazon River, trekked through Patagonia, and sailed some of the routes followed by Ulysses --recording everything of note in my journals to serve as material for my writing.
One of my trips took me to the Equatorial Andes where I followed the trail of Frederic Edwin Church, a romantic landscape artist who painted tropical volcanoes. The culmination of my experiences was a novel, Pilgrim of the Sublime--a book about art, family, passion, and one man’s attempt to lead a beautiful life in a world marked by longing and hardship.
From 2005-06, I lived in Tiradentes, Brazil with my wife Jennifer, who is also an international teacher. Together, we set up a small workspace where we practiced our respective arts. The venture was a long-cherished dream, as we resigned from our jobs and moved to a rural, colonial town to devote ourselves to developing our artistic skills.
Since then, we have relocated to Taiwan where we both work at the Taipei American School teaching courses in the International Baccalaureate Program. I have continued with my writing, and last year I completed a second novel--a satire in search of an agent. From time to time I publish non-fiction and short stories.
