Writer, maker of music, lover of all creatures great and small.
Author of novels, including Of Reptiles and Amphibians, Beast, Dizzlemuck, Iowa, Lost Creek Falls, and the brand-new Invasion of the Beekeepers.
These novels are literary, but I do touch on genres when the need arises. Beast, for instance, uses the idea of a werewolf to explore real themes of love and anxiety and what it means to make a promise to care for someone. Lost Creek Falls has a touch of Magical Realism to it. Dizzlemuck is a comic romp, a vicious satire about Scottish wee folk invading small-town USA.
Invasion of the Beekeepers concerns a young girl’s coming of age in the long-ago summer of 1980. Click Books in the menu above (or click this) to read more about this novel and others, and to discover where you can get yourself a copy or two.
Future works include a novel of a a study of America post-Kaiju attack; a work that covers 10,000 years in Wisconsin history, narrated by the land itself; an elegy for a country dragon; and a collection of western novellas. Plus much, much more.
As for the “maker of music” part: I’ve long had a fascination with music, and as far back as I can remember it was an important part of my life. A piano was in my house from my youngest days, my mother being a pianist (of the livingroom variety, mind you, not the classical sort), and the piano remains the instrument I am most drawn to, and which feels the most comforting to me. Although I can make sounds on guitar, bass, drums, harmonica, etc, I don’t think of myself as “playing” these things but “using” them. They are the tools I use to make my music, which ranges from noisy rock to experimental things to more ambient pieces. As in my writing, I do not retain a purist outlook on the creation of music. I love adventure, experiment, surprise.
As an animal-lover, I founded the Snake Anti-Defamation League, found on Facebook and in the mailboxes of your local snake-hating politician or businessman. I love snakes and other unhuggables because they’re misunderstood and far too frequently maligned and abused, to say nothing of necessary for the health and integrity of their environments. They’re also beautiful.
I’m a Wisconsin boy. Born in Rhinelander, raised in Oconto, educated to some degree at UW-Oshkosh. Currently living in the Madison area, although everything is subject to change.