About
I am a 27-year veteran Fire Captain for the city of Peoria (Illinois) Fire Department. My writing career started when I responded to a fire, and my firefighter and I were nearly cooked in a structure fire. I was asked to write a report on the incident, and I was so upset that I left out details and wrote one that wasn’t specific enough. The Fire Chief ordered me to write a more descriptive fire report. I wrote it, and I was rewarded with a day off work without pay.
That second report was very descriptive and accurate; it was titled “Faraday Street” and reflected what I had seen and felt during that two minutes of hell. My superiors found no humor in my report and promptly disciplined me, even though I had followed their orders explicitly. The repercussions I faced bypassed several disciplinary steps and I got the worst punishment possible–an insubordination charge and a day off without pay. The whole event erupted into controversy, and eventually, that second report got out to my coworkers. After several dozen of my fellow firefighters expressed interest in reading more of my stories, I started writing in earnest. I have been working toward publication for two years while teaching Hazardous Materials Response, Confined Space, Rope Rescue and Structural Collapse to my fellow firefighters and local businesses.
I am currently writing a murder mystery entitled “Tethered,” but my primary love is science fiction. I have several sci-fi novels in development, spanning everything from planetary colonization and aliens to time travel. I also write horror stories based on actual past events that are well documented.
