Mr. Ackerman graduated from Marian College (Indianapolis) in 1969, with a B.A. degree in Latin. He taught Latin for five years in a suburb of Indianapolis.He moved to Southern California in 1978 to pursue his interest in performing, singing and show business. There, he was in a few plays and sang his own music in a church in Anaheim, where he was a song leader.In 1986, Mr. Ackerman went back to teaching English and other subjects in an alternative public school where he remained until 2008.His first novel was actually written while he he lived in Indiana, but he was not able to finish the work until he retired in 2008. Within The Master's Power is set in a small midwestern town. Mr. Ackerman grew up in a small town 50 miles south of Bloomington Indiana.