As a kid, I spent most of my days in the woods, fighting dragons, stalking enemy armies, or creeping through the trees like a hobbit. My parents say they would hear me shout “Sting!” more than once, usually followed by the sound of something imaginary meeting its end.

Some things do not really leave you.

These days, I still wander, just a little slower. I read, I write, I hike, sometimes all at the same time if the trail is long enough.

I am a husband, a father, and a lifelong reader drawn to stories that last, the kind that are not just about what happens, but about what it costs.

I have always been pulled toward history and the worlds shaped from it, places where faith is tested, power is contested, and survival is never guaranteed. That pull led me naturally to historical fiction and fantasy, where truth hides inside myth, and belief is often proven in fire.

The stories I write live in that tension. They sit in the space between faith and collapse, where right and wrong blur, and what is necessary rarely comes clean.

Writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin have shaped how I think about building worlds, while Conn Iggulden and Michael Crichton have influenced how I think about grounding those worlds in history and consequence.

I have also always felt a pull toward apocalyptic stories. Not for the fall, but for what comes after. What survives. What is revealed. What still matters when everything else is stripped away.

That is where the real story begins.