How my story writing career began
I don’t know when I began reading science fiction, my guess it was when I was about ten years old. My first read (aside from comic books) was Isaac Asimov’s, I Robot. I became infatuated with robots and the concept of a positronic brain. At the time, my favorite TV shows were Buck Rogers and Captain Video.
During those early years, I enjoyed repairing old radios purchased from Goodwill and building electronic projects using circuit diagrams in hobby magazines. I knew then that I wanted to become an electrical engineer. I’ll have to admit that during my high school years, cars were my passion, but upon graduation I continued my quest to become an engineer. I acquired a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 1963. At the time, nobody was building robots, so I went to work for the local power company. Later I earned a master’s degree in systems engineering from the University of South Florida.
The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings introduced me to fantasy and I have read countless books of that genre ever since. My sons and I enjoyed role-playing games when they were teenagers and we would take turns serving as the dungeon master. The dungeon master was responsible for creating a dungeon (the game landscape, rules, creatures, etc.). When my turn came, I developed a dungeon titled, Castle of the Kren Lord. We played it off and on for weeks. My youngest son, Timothy, often talked about converting the game into a graphic novel. I toyed with the idea of using it as the basis for a book, but neither of us did. When he died unexpectedly in 2009, I decided to write the story and dedicate it to him, and that is how my writing career began.
I found I truly enjoyed writing and went on to write three sequels. The series starts out as a fantasy story but ends up as a mix of fantasy and science fiction. Since then, I have become interested in historical fantasy and published the Return of Bastet in 2023, and The Crow’s Gift in 2025.
So, you might wonder how a book about bats fits into all this? Well, my wife became interested in bats in 1987. She attended courses and training on bat conservation and biology and obtained a degree in biology at St. Petersburg College. By then she had become a recognized bat expert in Florida. I became interested in bat echolocation and the technology used to study it. Together, we developed a library of bat calls for Florida species and began surveying the state to determine the ranges and habitat of Florida’s native bats. We presented over two thousand educational programs on the topic at schools, libraries, and to environmental organizations throughout Florida. In 2004 we were approached by the University Press to write a book about Florida bats. Two years later we published Bats of Florida, the first book dedicated solely to Florida bats.