Being an avid reader when I was young fuelled a sometimes overactive imagination.

I’m not sure when the writing bug got me, but I used to love writing essays and later assignments at school.  It was most likely when at University, having taken a writing strand called ‘Narrative’, another name for ‘Creative Writing’.

This fuelled a desire to write short stories, of which I wrote quite a few, and recently, when dusting off my old files, I found all my old notes and works.  Including the dreaded rejection slips that all writers have no doubt stashed in the bottom drawer of their writing desk.

Whilst these rejection slips may have disheartened me, they did not discourage me.  About this time I started working for a company that operated out of a number of countries, had a rich and colorful history going back to the late 1800’s, and I thought this was an ideal subject to write a novel.

So it began.  Research, reading, collecting, accumulating.  Notes, timelines, more notes.

What pushed it along was the opportunity to become the principal researcher for a nonfiction history of the company and this afforded me several years researching, and working with two very astute authors who became mentors.

Alongside of the nonfiction history I found myself writing the fictionalized version.  To this day it is still a work in progress.

But, out of that came my first novel, soon to be published, called ‘The Starburst Conspiracy’.

Over the years, I have travelled extensively and kept journals, with the idea that one day all of those places would become locations in books.  Notebooks filled with odd characters, people and incidents observed, and whole tracts of stories written when the on the spot inspiration has been a driving force.

All of this is the basis of the first three novels, Sunday In New York, set, of course, in New York, probably my favourite city in the world, “Echoes From The Past’ equally set in New York, Brooklyn Heights and Philadelphia.  The third, The Devil You Don’t, travels through Europe, starting in Geneva, moving to Rome, then Sorrento, and then to Venice.

Now, my passion to write is fuelled by travel and fine dining.  When I take a break from these, I get to torment my three wonderful grandchildren whom I active encourage to read as much as they can, and more recently write.

As for almost every other writer, I would not be able to do any of this without my wife who has put up with my moodiness, days locked away in a room trying to punch out another 2,000 words, and yet despite everything still puts up with me.

I wish I could say the same for our cat.  Alas, I am still trying to work out how to be his friend!