Zlotchew joined the US Naval Reserve at 17 and was honorably discharged as Chief Petty Officer at age 33.  His experiences at sea and in various ports have left a deep impression that shows up in several of his short stories.

He has worked for the export department of a large liquor manufacturer, has been Coordinator for a N.Y. State agency supplying instruction to Hispanic seasonal workers in rural N.Y. State, taught Spanish in high school and in several universities. Zlotchew is presently Distinguished Teaching Professor of Spanish (language, literatures, linguistics) at SUNY Fredonia.

He has enjoyed reading from the time he was in primary school, both fact and fiction.  He has traveled widely on 5 continents.  All these experiences have influenced his writing.

Zlotchew has had 17 books published, but only 3 of them (so far) are his own fiction.  Two of these are novels (military/action and espionage/thriller) while the latest is a collection of his short stories.   The most recent novel, The Caucasian Menace  (2010), is an espionage/thriller.

Zlotchew's short story collection, Once Upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties,  was Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, short story category, 2011. 

Most of the short stories in his collection take place against the background of the 1950s, a very different civilization from that of the Twenty-First Century --on the surface-- yet humans have had the same instincts and needs since we were first human. category, 2011.