Hello! Very excited to be a member here and to be a published author after decades of trying.

I studied comparative literature at SUNY at Buffalo and graduated with a B.A. cum laude, many years ago. I went on to study comparative literature at NYU Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences, but then transfered over to the Gallatin Division where I studied creative writing, including poetry, and music. It was one of those "create your own masters program" things and mine was songwriting. My favorite moments from that part of my academic career was studying with the Pulitzer Prize winner, poet Galway Kinnell, and the best-selling and award-winning author, E.L. Doctorow.

NYU was expensive and at that time they were advising against becoming a professor of English or writing because the field was saturated, so I changed direction and enrolled in the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law and graduated with honors. Although I had some great experiences as an intern with the U.S. Attorney's Office (under U.S. Attorney Rudolph Guliani before he cornered the hair dye and whiskey market) and the NY City Transit Authority, my post-law school career was not as inspiring to me. Still, I stuck with it while writing screenplays at night and playing and writing music.

I finally moved out to Los Angeles and had a modestly successful career as a screenwriter. I earned a living and sold some scripts, thought nothing ever made it to the screen. I did, however, become a member of the Writers' Guild of America.

After a while, it was apparent that I wouldn't have the satisfying experience I had hoped for, and moved on. I invented a product to treat and prevent carpal tunnel like pain and started a company, Massage U, Inc. that is still operating to this day, selling the Roleo Arm and Hand Massager and other products. While running my company, I continued to compose and perform music both as a solo act and in several bands, and started writing novels.

One of my favorite writers is Mark Twain. Old School, yes, I know. I read Life on the MIssissippi in college, and then re-read it 15 or so years later in L.A. I was struck by a chapter with a great murder-revenge plot, and decided to write a screenplay. That screenplay was one of my most successful in terms of generating interest in my writing, but I could never get a major director involved, which was needed to get an epic period piece into production. That screenplay became the basis for the novel, Murder on the Mississippi, that I have just been offered a publishing contract for, fittingly, by a publisher in Mississippi.

I am also working on two other novels, one called Smoking In Bed: tales of love, sex and terrorism, that was completed even before Murder on the MIssisppi and is undergoing a rewrite, and the other based on a dream I had many years ago. It's a great story about regular people, and I am telling it as an alternative historical novel set in a place that is reminiscent of Upstate New York in the 19th century.

I'm a married guy (second time's the charm) with two adult children, a step-daughter and step-daughter-in-law, and a truly wonderul granddauther. I continue to peform throughout Los Angeles, on my own and with a couple of bands, and that keeps me happy and artistically fulfilled.