BIO
I went to a really small high school. My graduating class could have easily squished its way onto a single bus. So when two of my classmates, girls I’d known for years, died in a car wreck senior year, it hit me like an uppercut you don’t see coming. Suddenly, the ground I’d been standing on had shifted. Nothing made any sense anymore. The only thing that made me feel better during this tumultuous time was writing an ambitious, hopeful, but admittedly amateurish sonnet.
Writing as a way of making myself feel better was my MO well into my 20s at which point I shifted my philosophy to writing as a way to pay the bills (while still feeling reasonably good about myself). I began my career in journalism at The Jackson Hole News, a weekly newspaper that employed a surprisingly talented stable of writers and editors given how small the town was. I started as a copyeditor, the equivalent of beginning one’s restaurant career washing dishes. After begging for a writing assignment, I was eventually allowed to write the copy for the calendar section. Just a few months later, the sports editor assigned me my first article.
Soon I was writing features with full-page spreads and glossy photos as well as a regular column, both of which chronicled my love of sports and my youthful thirst for adventure. I wrote about driving a snowmobile (for the very first time) deep into the Wind River Range in the middle of winter to interview and camp alongside some of the most successful dog mushers in the world. I wrote about using my press credentials to finagle a ticket to a NASCAR race (another first) in Las Vegas and enduring the noisy monotony that ensued. I even wrote about meeting an old woman who I’d observed walking along a street near my house every day for months and asking her, in effect, “What gives?”
When I strayed from my insistence of always getting paid to write and cranked out 12 single-space pages about my experience at Burning Man, I knew I was ready to start writing lengthier pieces. An urge to write about poker’s most prestigious tournament led to my first book deal, and writing books (and helping others do the same) has been my focus ever since. The subject matter I’ve covered in books I’ve written (and ghostwritten) has been just as varied as what I covered as a newspaper reporter: poker, military contractors, neuroscience, internet startups, and, perhaps most notoriously, racial identity. The one common theme? Humanity. All good stories have people at the center.
I live in Asheville, North Carolina with my wife, son, and dog.