After growing up in Harlan County, in the hills of Kentucky, I joined the United States Navy and proudly served my country for eight years. I left the military in 1981 and became a field service engineer spending the next twenty years installing and repairing CT scanners and other types of x-ray based medical equipment. Wanting to try another career, I earned my bachelor’s degree in nursing and became a RN at the age of 47. For the next 15 years I worked primarily as a psychiatric nurse, retiring from the VA in 2016. I earned my master’s degree, then taught psychiatric nursing at my alma mater, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX, before deciding to make another career change. I have always written poems, essays, and short stories. I now write for Dusty Saddle Publishing and have a number full-length western novels, a mountain man series based in the Appalachian Mountains, along with a short that was published stand alone and included in an anthology. I am working on the manuscript for my next novel.

My wife of 30+ years, Charlotte, and I, retired to Carriere, MS. It was difficult for me to adjust to not getting up and going to work every day, but I have settled in and am spending a lot time reading, and more importantly, writing