I'm more than a writer. I teach writing at a local college, but I'm also an organizational wellness advocate and consultant (WWW.WellnessAtWork.info). Even though I don't live and breathe competition like I used to, I still consider myself an athlete. I'm ACE certified as a Personal Trainer and I'm currently training hard to continue climbing the "14ers," the tallest mountains in Colorado!

My novel, RISING SUN, DISTANT MOUNTAIN was actually part of my Ph.D. dissertation. I spent three years as a wild land fire fighter with the Forest Service. My last year, a number of firefighters were killed on fires. I was almost killed myself when a fire nearly overran my crew on a mountain top in Arizona!

When I reviewed the documentation from one particularly bad fire - Storm King in central Colorado - I found several interesting facts. First, all the firefighters on the mountain that day were highly experienced professionals. Second, they all made a series of bad decisions knowing they were putting themselves at unnecessary risk. And third, they all intuitively or through some gut level instinct realized how dangerous the situation was. Sadly, 14 firefighters died that day when the fire "blew up" unexpectedly.

For my doctoral work, I wanted to explore experiences like "intuition," "instinct," and "gut feelings" more thoroughly The novel is the culmination of over four years of research. The dissertation abstract reads, in part: An imaginative and creative exploration of non-linear decision-making using boundary experiences as a primary framing strategy."

I hope you'll take a look at the book. I think the story works, but it's the ideas within it may be even more interesting.