About me

I write. Along the way, I have done many things to earn my keep, from kicking a foot press at a metals fabrication plant, to guiding a well-worn hand truck on the loading docks. I ran a cash register before they told you how to make change. I swung a scythe on a small family farm in Norway for a month, followed by a month house-sitting for a family in a Paris suburb. I have cleared tables, waited on tables, and carried tables into and out of moving vans. I have played bass guitar and sung in four-part harmonies for a folk and roots band. I played a court clerk in Spielberg’s Amistad, and from time to time I show up in the background in movies shot in Massachusetts. I enjoy splitting wood and feeling its heat from our stove.

I delivered The Evening Bulletin for four years as a youngster to pay for drum lessons. As an adult, I joined the writing staff of The Providence Journal and would go on to win the newspaper’s top award for reporting, while managing the news bureau in Newport (now shuttered, alas). I have written news stories, marketing copy, and you-name-it for newspapers, newsletters, online blogs, and professional journals, including Studies in Scottish Literature and The Journal of Popular Culture. I am devoted to Shakespeare. I admire the films of William Wellman, Akira Kurosawa, and Bela Tarr, and I will go to the mat with anyone to argue that Mr. Majestyk, written by Elmore Leonard and directed by Richard Fleischer, is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. I also toss a mean Frisbee, handle a stunt kite, do yoga, ride my road bike (I’m a steel-frame guy), play badminton, cook vegetarian, and walk the beach at East Matunuck with my wife. Bottom line: Family comes first.