I grew up in the Philadelphia Area, also living at times in Italy and South America. I've been a Northern California resident for many years now. Major influences: South American fiction, Social and Comic science fiction, Satirists and Humorists. My favorite writers include Roberto Arlt, Jorge Luis Borges, Philip K Dick, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, Clarice Lispector, Julio Cortazar, Ursula LeGuin, and far too many more to list.