So you’ve stumbled onto the website of some guy who calls himself a writer. Maybe you’re wondering if you should read his stuff (I mean, of course you should). But first, you’re probably asking yourself: Who the hell is this guy?

Fair question. Let me try to answer it.

The Short Version

I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember—first as excuses to my mother, then in the melodies and lyrics of the songs I’d hastily sketch out on guitar, then in lines of code, and eventually as words on the page. I spent thirty years building a career in software development before I took early retirement to do what I actually wanted to do: write.

The Longer Version (Because You Asked)

I’ve wanted to be a lot of things in my life. Spoiler: I only became one of them.

At twelve, I was certain I’d pitch for the New York Yankees. Not just pitch—start. Game 7 of the World Series, the crowd chanting my name. There’d be no closer warming up in the bullpen because we wouldn’t need one. Never mind that I could barely throw a curveball, or that my fastball topped out somewhere between “soft toss” and “did you even let go of it?” What mattered was the dream.

By seventeen, I’d traded pinstripes for ripped jeans and an electric guitar. I was going to be a Rock Star—capital R, capital S. I grew my hair out, practiced until my fingers bled, and played in bands that saw some success, but not enough. Tastes changed as they do, and suddenly the world was no longer interested in teased hair and spandex. My dreams of headlining Madison Square Garden were buried under a pile of plaid flannel.

At twenty-two, I fell in love with computers all over again. I’d had a Commodore 64 as a teenager and taught myself to program it in both BASIC and 6502 machine code (because apparently, I was determined to have even less of a social life). It was when I was working in the warehouse of a systems integrator that the old obsession came roaring back. I saved every paycheck until I could buy my own PC—a 286 mule that resisted everything I asked it to do—and I spent every spare moment either sitting in front of it or camped out at the bookstore devouring programming manuals.

By twenty-four, that stubborn streak paid off, and I landed a proper job as a programmer at a bank in New York City. Incredibly—don’t ask me how—I turned it into a thirty-year career at places like Microsoft, Barnes & Noble, Nike, a startup that got swallowed by Amazon, and then almost a decade at Amazon itself before I decided I’d had enough and took early retirement to enjoy my life.

Not bad for a kid who once thought McDonald’s cheeseburgers were haute cuisine.

And Then Writing Found Me

The truth is, it had always been there.

When I was eight, I filled a composition notebook with my first short stories. By fourteen, I’d written a full-length horror novel called The Fourth—a loving tribute to Friday the 13th and Halloween, handwritten in a hardback journal, one shaky line at a time. The writing wasn’t good—not by any sane measure—but it was mine, and that mattered. I’d pulled something out of pure imagination and made it exist, and that hooked me.

I studied creative writing at NYU and screenwriting at the New York Film Academy. Never finished either degree, because life had other plans—but those classrooms taught me how to think about story, character, and voice in ways that still shape everything I write. I lived in New York City for twenty years, and honestly, just riding the subway or eavesdropping in diners gave me enough material for the rest of my life.

Somewhere in my world of logic and syntax, I realized that writing code wasn’t so different from telling stories. Both are about guiding someone through an experience—drawing them in, keeping them engaged, leading them somewhere new. I’d write a first draft of a program, rough but full of potential, and then refine it until every line felt inevitable. Code was my prose for a long time: draft, revise, refine, release. Same process, different punctuation.

Through it all—the Yankees dream, the rock bands, the thirty-year tech career—writing was always this constant hum in the background. A thing I’d do when life wasn’t demanding every ounce of me.

Then, at fifty-four, with time finally on my side, I got to return to what I always wanted. No deadlines from bosses. No code releases to ship. No late-night debugging sessions. Just me, the blank page, and the same kid who once thought maybe he’d be a Yankee, or a rock star, or something else entirely.

Turns out what I really wanted all along was this—to tell stories.

I still believe the best stories are the ones that feel like they’ve been waiting for you—humming quietly in the background until you’re finally ready to bring them to life.

So here I am.

Thanks for stopping by. Stick around, read a little. I think you might like what comes next.