I didn't grow up wanting to write. In fact, when I finished college I'd all but stopped reading. Then I took a job at a local police department as a whistle-stop on the way to some great destiny, got hurt early on and, faced with long days of much-needed bed rest, limped into a local book store, and left with an armful of novels.

Two decades later and I've served that police department as an officer, supervisor and, now, investigative lieutenant, all the while bleeding the book stores dry. As for the great destiny, I simply offer this: we are never fully human until we find some outlet for our innate creative impulses. My outlet is the novel, particularly the dystopian science fiction and horror stories that resonated with me those years ago. Perhaps, one day, I'll find that something I've written has influenced another, the same as that armful of books once did for me.