I grew up on Shuswap Lake in beautiful B.C. Canada. It's a pristine wilderness with fresh water lakes ( the Shuswap Lake is the largest in BC), 1000 yr old cedar and spruce trees, animals and fish in abundance. The rocks themselves are over 2 billion yrs old. How could you not be inspired by all that beauty? I have seen a change in my life time though. All the mining and logging and thousands of houseboats on the lake every year has had its damaging effects and with the impoverished economy, I'm compelled to write.

I started when I was a young teenager. Hours of playing Dungeons and Dragons taught me all about world building and character building. That's when I fell in love with Fantasy.

I didn't think I had shot of becoming published within the next 20 years. And from what I've read from published authors, they aren't too impressed with the formal publishing either. Smashwords is the best!

My greatest joy of writing is the creation. When an idea is born within a thought and then grows into story is a miraculous thing.

When I'm not writing, I'm generally working some meaningless job to pay the bills. I try spend a lot of time hiking on some mountain with my dog.

When the creation of the story is all worked out in my head and I start the actual writing, I start by putting pen to paper and get it all out. At this stage it doesn't matter how it sounds. Then I put it into the computer and this is when the magic happens- usually by just getting my word count up. I take that, print it out, and do a totally rewrite- adding and changing things as I go. Somehow by the end, I have a story.

In grade 7 I read Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. It was the first time I had been totally submerged in a made-up fantasy world. I didn't want to leave. From that time on my mind was filled with magic and images of dragons and to this day I still want to fight evil.

When it comes the cover, I know the general idea and then I hand it over to my son Ryan (he goes by Pradius on line- google him). Ryan than does his creative genius to it and out comes my cover.

I'm still working on the anthology 'Dark Tales of Fantasy', where evil things happen to good people and there's never a happen ending. I've written three stories so far and one quickly on the way. 'A Man Caught in Time'. Four more are on the drawing board, with my signature story being 'The City that Fell' (tentative title), about a city that grew rich on mining gold but their is a sinister secret kept within its walls.

My favourite authors are Terry Goodkind and RA Salvatore. Their books are a must read.

Life inspires me to get out of bed. Life is precious, and you never know when its going to be gone.