From 2000 to around 2018-2019, a substantial portion of my income came from writing technology books–close to 60 of them! Titles like Windows PowerShell: TFM and Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches might sound dry and boring, but they made a big difference to the people in my field. I also founded the nonprofit "The DevOps Collective" to help bring young people into the industry and to foster best-in-class technical practices.
My tech career moved toward management in 2018-2019, which meant writing tech books wasn't really feasible. I did dive into business and career management books, with titles like Own Your Tech Career and Be The Master, but my partner eventually convinced me to start writing all the fiction stories I'd been saving in my head.
The first was the novella A History of the Galactic War, a "textbook" of the galactic war that you and I have yet to experience. Why? Because textbooks don't have dialogue! It let me focus on learning to build a plot arc. I followed that with the Achillios Chronicles trilogy, and while it definitely has many of the markings of a new author, I'm still very proud of the story (it's available on my "Freebies" page for free, if you'd like to check it out).
All of that gave me the confidence to write The Never: A Tale of Peter and the Fae, a retelling of Peter Pan that had been knocking around in my brain for around... eek, 20 years. It was well-reviewed, won an award, and formally launched my fiction-writing career.
Today, I'm fortunate enough to have authored Kirkus Starred-review books like Daniel Scratch: a story of witchkind, the best selling cozy fantasy Pubs & Pegasi, the award-winning Clara Thorn trilogy, and much more.
These days, I split my time between my home in Las Vegas and a getaway cabin in Duck Creek Village, Utah. I am diligently supervised by a chocolate Goldendoodle named Cory, his younger Australian Labradoodle sibling Dylan, and the aforementioned partner. I get out to quite a few fairs and markets throughout Southern Utah in the summer months, and I hope to run across you at one of them!