As an only child growing up rural Ohio, Ben developed an overactive imagination. When it was no longer socially acceptable to fight orcs and cave trolls with his homemade wooden sword, he turned that imagination toward writing fiction and creating fantasy worlds for roleplaying games.After some early success writing short stories, Ben took a hiatus from writing to attend graduate school at the University of South Florida, where he earned his MA in Early Modern European History. His graduate research on medieval and 17th century Russia became the inspiration for his first novel, The Walls of Dalgorod.Ben currently resides in Tampa, FL, where due to his casual relationship with a razor and comb, he is sometimes mistaken for a person of interest.