I've always been a voracious reader, with parental encouragement from a very early age.  My interests and influences are widespread as a look at my blog  and my website will quickly reveal.  However, since an early age, crime fiction has been one of my major interests.  I grew up with the Hardy boys, Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, among others.  But I have to say that one of the big literary influences in my life was and is William Shakespeare. Another influence in later years after I became a published author was my happy association with two other fine authors in a partnership we call Minnesota Crime Wave.  They are, of course, Ellen Hart and William Kent Krueger. Before I became a mystery writer and reviewer, I was a freelance photographer, a Public Television program director and producer, a Cable TV administrator, and a counselor and faculty member at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I have reviewed mystery fiction for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and for Mystery Scene Magazine. Now my reviews appear on my web site, and on Internet review sites, including Books 'n' Bytes and DorothyL. I'm still an avid recreational sailor. With my wife and friends I've  sailed in many locations across the world. I'm a member of Sisters in Crime, Private Eye Writers of America, MWA and EPIC. You'll frequently find me touring bookstores and libraries with my companions-in-crime, The Minnesota Crime Wave. I write three series: a sailing adventure series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney, the Sean Sean private investigator series and lasat year I introduced a new protagonist, Jack Marston, a mid-level administrator at an urban college. My short work appears in anthologies Silence of the Loons, Resort to Murder, and Heat of the Moment.