I was born in Belleville, Ontario, a town now known throughout the province as “Bellvegas”, despite its utter lack of brothels, casinos and Elvis impersonators (although the real Elvis lives in hiding just north of Belleville, in Tweed), and what happens in Belleville only stays in Belleville because the stories aren’t worth retelling. Perhaps that’s why I write.

 

I began writing seriously in ninth grade, and went through various experimental attempts before completing my “first” novel after high school. This novel I edited an re-edited again and again until I could no longer stand to read it, and entered the market trying to solicit agents and publishers, a challenge I pursued with that book for many years. It was a post-apocalyptic science fiction tale that dealt with mercenaries, assassins, freedom fighters, and nefarious villains, and was ultimately a kick-ass ride through desolate landscapes with fun and sexy characters, with the (one of many) grand overarching theme of idealism versus pragmatism. That novel remains unpublished to this day.

 

In the intervening years, I worked diligently on a lengthy series of interstellar science fiction, which kept growing and growing in its projected length until gradually it collapsed in on itself like a neutron star. After the dust had settled, I was left with a number of half-finished novels, including Book 1, Book 4, Book 9, Book 10, and a vast array of single chapters in between – and, as it happened, one standalone novella that introed one portion of the series. This novella was called The Zimmer Insurgency. At around this time, the rejections became tiresome, and so I went instead to self-publishing. What better book to self-publish than The Zimmer Insurgency? It was too short to fulfil a publisher’s wish list, and it was completed. With just a quick edit, it could be out there, on the market, ready to be adored. The problem was, of course, that that “quick edit” became a lengthy and tedious process that more than doubled the length of the novel (no longer a novella), where I completely changed the tone of the writing to be more sarcastic and absurd, and added in things like sixteenth century pirates as the scourge of the 22nd century and psychedelic breastmilk as the drug problem of the day.

 

The Zimmer Insurgency was self-published in 2013 (this being my real first novel). That same year, I began working on my second novel, The Hounds of Harujin, which managed to combine all the best qualities of my first (“first”) novel and that elaborate series from whence The Zimmer Insurgency came: those being that it quickly grew into a massive ongoing series that threatens a supernova-style self-implosion and that it’s a a post-apocalyptic science fiction tale that deals with bandits, concubines, assassins, freedom fighters, and nefarious villains, and is ultimately a kick-ass ride through desolate landscapes with fun and sexy characters, with the (one of many) grand overarching theme of idealism versus pragmatism. But hey, at least I did away with the mercenaries and added in bandits instead. And concubines; lots and lots of concubines. The simplest way to sell this novel is: Genghis Khan versus the modern world.

 

I moved to the Oshawa area in twelfth grade, and went to Sir Sandford Fleming College in Lindsay in 2006, where I obtained a trade certificate in heavy equipment operation. I have worked in the construction industry ever since, in the Greater Toronto Area. Lately, my work has increasingly been regarding industry safety. I enjoy travel, reading, well-made television, and writing about myself on a Sunday night while halfway blitzed on rum. In 2018, I rescued brother and sister feral kittens born on my construction site, whom I named Aybars (trans. Moon Panther, named after my third book, The Moon Panther) and Tumelun (named after the book I hope to be my fifth, The Ballad of Tumelun Tombs). They went from being bandit cats, eating anything and everything they could get their paws on, to being completely domesticated beggars that spend their days sleeping on my pillow, atop my bed. I have an interest in the philosophy and history of East Asia, particularly China and Mongolia. I can poorly speak (some) Korean, and even less Mandarin.