I was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1963 and attended the University
of Virginia. After college I went to the St. Croix where I was a
sportswriter for the Virgin Islands Daily News. I returned to Richmond
and was fired by Xerox and Hyatt Hotels before landing a job as a
waiter at a Courtyard By Marriott on Broad Street. I saved up money and
went to Europe. I spent most of my time in Florence writing a novel I
never finished. I also went broke. After borrowing money from a priest,
I returned home. Ten days laters I drove across country and settled in
San Francisco, where I worked for a law firm. A year later, I decided
to try my luck with another novel. I moved to Mexico to write it. Once
I had a draft finished, I took a week-long bus ride to Chicago and
lived on a buddy's sofa. Illness required me to return to Richmond to
recuperate. I worked for my mother's law office in Powhatan and then
for Hunton and Williams, which ended disastrously. I relocated to
Charlottesville and landed a job as a parking lot attendant. I later
took up bartending and started my favorite career, substitute teacher.
I also met my wife and together we moved to Florida in 1990. We bounced
back and forth between Gainesville and Key West and I worked many odds
jobs and continued writing. We moved to St. Petersburg in 1996 and I
decided grad school would do me some good. I got an MA in American
History from the University of South Florida and began to study
Florida's past with rigor and delight. I now teach at Eckerd
College, mostly in the disciplines of History and Environmental Studies.
