I always had a drive to tell and write stories. I wrote my first for a class assignment in third grade. The assignment was to write a story about Halloween. My #2 pencil went to my Chief Writing Tablet in a flurry of lead-laced fiction. I scribbled down nearly a full page of the most horrifying words about a haunted house to ever grace a third-grader's page. What was the fruit of my labor? you ask. The yarn earned top-billing in the weekly school newspaper. It was read and loved by at least half-a-dozen students. My teacher loved it so much she made me read it in front of the fourth grade class. Horror-stricken but proud, I bumbled through it and then bolted for my own classroom. The story has since passed into obscurity, never to be seen again. The same beast that propelled the haunted house gem in third grade awoke from its thirty year slumber. The creative leviathan could not be contained any longer! I began to create what is now known as "Rise of the Carrion Lord" on legal pads (Chief Writing Tablets are hard to find these days), my writing notebook, and eventually my laptop. In four years "Rise" became a legitimate book. After years of ideas, scribbling on scrap pages and notebooks, and threats of "I'm gonna write a book," it was finished. The inspiration for "Rise of the Carrion Lord" came from years of wondering what it would be like if dogs had their own world. A world where they were very human-like, yet still dogs. Rise is the product of those thoughts. I've always spoken to and for my own dogs. (A condition I consider perfectly normal. Thank you very much!)I'm an avid reader of many things. My favorite thing to read is fantasy in any form, but I love a good story no matter the genre. Middle level fantasy has become one of my favorites, having devoured numerous top sellers. I live in North Arkansas with my wife of twenty-two years, Lisa, my wonderful children, Autumn and Ian, and my chocolate Labrador, Latte (who doesn't know she's a dog, but thinks she is the third child!). I'm presently the minister for the Ward Street Church of Christ in Hardy, AR, where I've been for six years.