Welcome to my small corner of the writing universe.

I should have been a journalist, but where I was raised, journalists routinely turned up dead in a ditch somewhere. So, I followed my other passion and became a wildlife ecologist, laboring away as a cog in the wheel of the conservation industry for nearly two decades. Working in some of the most amazingly beautiful places on this Earth with some of the most fascinating people has been a tremendous honor and privilege. I loved every minute of it until I didn’t anymore. The divorce was painful. I gave up my fire gear, stowed my dive gear and the navy seal knife that had seen me through years of field work was relegated to that drawer. The one we keep remnants of past lives in. After the wallowing and after I found a resting place for my grief and sadness I opened myself up for change. Following years of grinding out technical reports, Realm of the Malach is my first real foray into the creative arts and a preliminary attempt at indulging my love of writing. It is inspired, in part, by my eclectic experiences in the field, but for the most part is a reflection of an unbridled right brain after decades of living within the confines of left brain logic.

Otherwise, I live with my family, two dogs, three cats and four (sometimes five) feral cats in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. where I conduct my research, write and parent the greatest experiment of my life (my five-year-old). When I’m not working, I’m likely teaching my kid about oak galls, rescuing tadpoles from evaporating backwater, setting out medicine bait for the random mangy fox that wanders into our yard or some such endeavor. It’s not very exotic, but nature is and will always be my muse, no matter where in the world I may be. And, somewhere in the lowland forests of Papua New Guinea is a shrubby treelet species named after me, just in case I get nostalgic on occasion.

I strive to write stories that readers can get lost in, the way I still lose myself in the pages of an intricately woven book and whose authors created such vivid worlds that inspired me to venture beyond the boundaries of my own. It is for this that I write.

Thank you for visiting. Please putter around the site (it will be changing quickly) and I hope you feel free to jump in and participate in our discourse.

Enjoy!