“After earning my Ph.D. and teaching literature, drama and interdisciplinary humanities courses at various universities, I left academe to become a freelance writer and guerilla humanist. I found myself lecturing on everything from the five outer planets to the neurobiology of human emotions to a brief history of nudity in Utah. I have survived the production of 25 of my plays, a serious accident on my Harley, teaching piano lessons, moving 55 times, selling Ferraris, and being locked down while teaching inside Utah State Prison. When I later taught Law and Literature to Utah judges, I joked that I couldn't find many differences between them and the inmates as students.
Outside working for profit, I have written poetry, essays on art exhibitions, articles on orthopedic surgeries, a catalog for an electronic sculptor, a musical comedy, a star show for the planetarium, a novel and an opera--everything except my obituary. Better do that before it is too late.”
I wrote The Round Prairie Wars, an initiation story, to celebrate some of the dearest--and scariest--people I knew while I was growing up--teachers, neighbors, librarians, bullies, friends. I especially wanted to remind readers what it was like to be nine years old: how, as kids, we all face many of the same challenges and create much of the same magic. I set the novel in 1953--the height of the McCarthy hearings, witch hunts, and conspiracy theories about Communist takeovers--a period frighteningly similar to our own.