A Little About My Background

For over thirty years I worked as a software engineer, first in telecommunications, then in my own business providing web ordering services for restaurants. After retiring from software engineering, my lifelong desire to write led me to start another online service, writing customized poems for any and all occasions. This was fun for a while, but not very fulfilling, so eventually OccasionalPoems.com closed up shop.

I started writing seriously in 2011 after my sister persuaded me to attend a meeting of SCBWI, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, which is another story in itself.

That's when the ball started to roll. Joining a critique group was the single most important action in my writing career. Ever since, I've been writing young adult and middle grade novels, putting them in front of my critique group, revising, and improving my craft. So far I've written eight novels, three of them were finalists in the Tassy Walden Awards for New Voices in Children's Literature. A fourth, Iceteroid, won first place in the 2021 Tassy Walden Awards. Iceteroid was actually the first novel I wrote, but only captured a Tassy win after many rounds of revision.

I plan to continue my writing, work through the query process and eventually be published. So far it has been a long and thrilling process with enough ups and downs to make it a first class roller coaster ride. But I think I'll get there in the end.

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Writing Inspiration Image

Dwindling

March 10 2024 - Why are the grasslands turning into a swamp? Where have all the mammoths gone? And how will Minnow ever earn his true hunter's name? Find out in my short story, Dwindling, published this month in Starship Sofa.

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Europan Dance

August 10 2023 - My latest flash fiction story Europan Dance, about our first contact with the inhabitants of the sea beneath Europa's ice covered ocean, appears this month in Sci-Fi Shorts.

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Icemelt a Finalist

March 09 2023 - My short story, Icemelt, is a finalist in the 2023 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award.

Started in 2007, this annual competition celebrates stories focused on near future space exploration.

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My Puff Piece in the North Haven Courier

May 09 2022 - Here is a write-up I received in the North Haven Courier, my local paper, after winning first place in the 2021 Tassy Walden Awards.

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My Books

Iceteroid

In Iceteroid, thirteen-year-old Asteroid Belter Jase Bailey has just started to work in his dad's ice mining company. Struggling to keep up with the older ice jocks, he worries that one of his frequent screw-ups will destroy the fragile two kilometer wide iceteroid they are constructing to sell to the lunar colonies.

When a freak explosion ruptures another ice jock's space suit, Jase's quick thinking saves his teammate'slife, but now Jase is suddenly thrust into the middle of spies, sabotage, and an unscrupulous corporation's deadly plot to destroy his family, friends, and the entire independent Belter community.

The first draft of Iceteroid was completed in 2012. After many revisions, it won first place in the Connecticut-wide 2021 Tassy Walden Awards for New Voices in Children's Literature in the middle grade novel category.

Causeway

Causeway, my second novel, is a young adult science fiction mystery that follows a group of teenagers investigating a mysterious drowning when they work as summer engineering interns aboard the trans-Atlantic causeway project.

Causeway was a Finalist in the 2014 Tassy Walden competition.

Eyes of the Beholder

Eyes of the Beholder, a speculative middle grade adventure, tells how a blind boy rescues a genetically enhanced puppy who lets him see through her eyes, and with help from his friends defeats a villainous security guard who wants to steal the puppy and sell her to the highest bidder.

Eyes of the Beholder was a Finalist in the 2015 Tassy Walden competition.

Upgrades

Upgrades is a young adult speculative adventure. In this tale, a boy who loves exploring the desert around his home discovers that a secretive research facility is performing illegal experiments on imprisoned kids to give them enhanced physical powers, but at a great cost. Now he must help them escape or he could share their fate.

Upgrades was a finalist in the 2016 Tassy Walden competition.

Quantum Ghost

Quantum Ghost is a speculative middle grade tale about a girl who after years of hiding that she can talk to ghosts, finally reveals the truth, only to have the government intervene and a corrupt bureaucrat try to use her abilities for his personal gain.

Quantum Ghost was completed in 2017.

Reentry

Reentry, a middle grade science fiction adventure, tells how a shy but brilliant eighth grade boy and five other kids in the first Students In Space mission are marooned aboard the crippled International Space Station after surviving a terrorist attack.

With the adult station crew dead and launch facilities on Earth disabled, they must use all their ingenuity and the wrecked stations remaining resources to save themselves before their air runs out.

The first draft of Reentry was completed in 2018.

Stormherd

Stormherd, a middle grade science fiction thriller, tells how three friends who live in the Washington, D.C. area foil an eco-terrorist plot to take over the United States' weather control satellites and crash a giant hurricane into the nation's capitol.

The first draft of Stormherd was completed in 2020.

The Iron Signet

In The Iron Signet, a middle grade fantasy, a woods-smart orphan boy stumbles across a mysterious girl hiding in the forest, nearly hands her over to her villainous pursuers, and ends up helping her escape before the would-be-kidnappers can use her and her magic signet to betray her grandfather, the King.