Both of my medical thriller novels have eerie parallels to today's pandemic crisis. In The Smallpox Incident, I described a deadly virus spreading rapidly by human contact, and a medical researcher, Dr. Peyton McKean, who rushes to create a vaccine that could save millions of lives. Today's coronavirus outbreak, the shutdown of society, and the urgent need for a new vaccine were anticipated in this novel published 18 years ago! The reason I could foresee this future that has come to pass is that in addition to my credentials as an author I am also a vaccine researcher, and have been for a lifetime. The other novel, The Neah Virus, examines a similar catastrophe, this time arising out of nature like COVID-19. The parallels are frighteningly familiar.

Now, I understand readers might be reluctant to pick up books so closely related to our current disaster, but I urge people to give them a try. You see, in this case we're dealing with fictional viruses and most importantly, with happy endings. Viruses vanquished. Lives saved. The world restored to normal. And all that with extreme attention to realistic detail only an actually vaccine researcher like myself could bring to bear. Be prepared for much nail-biting along the way, though.

I grew up in West Seattle. My earliest days were spent in a housing project on the banks of the Duwamish River. I remember my mother scolding me for coming inside with mud on my shoes. That was Duwamish River mud, and I have always felt a connection to the riverbanks that were home to Chief Seattle and his people. Most of my fiction includes Northwest native culture at one level or another, most often as a central element of the mystery or adventure tale.

I have written all my life. In fact, the first draft of my recent novel Rainier Erupts was penned for an 8th grade English class assignment to write a magazine-style article about my hometown. The teacher liked my writing ability but gave me a B because she felt I overstepped the assignment when I described the beauty of Mount Rainier and then proceeded to describe the big volcano erupting and covering the reader in hot lava and ash.