I grew up in a wilderness area in Southern Alaska, where books were hard to come by. I used to walk down a mile through the woods to a tiny trading post store where people brought their books when they were through reading them. I loved (and love) good science fiction writers, such as early Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg and Ursula Leguin.

I make about half of my living as a freelance illustrator, the other half as a teacher. (I teach acting, writing and filmmaking, and some visual art classes.) I also write screenplays and short stories, and make independent films. I live in the north end of Seattle, in the Lake Forest Park area.

I started out writing short stories, and also spent some time in the 1990s writing and illustrating comic books. My first book of fiction, The Hungry Time (a short story collection), was published in 1995. My first stageplay The Ghost and Ms. Demure was produced at the New City Theater director's festival in the early 90s. My stageplay Demea was produced four times in the Seattle Fringe Festival. When the Fringe Festival closed up shop around 2001, I started making movies. My first twenty or so films aired on a program called The Edge, on the Seattle public television channel on Comcast.

That's the news :)