Tom Lucas was born in Detroit, on the tail end of the ‘60s. Throughout his childhood, Tom found solace in comic books, Star Wars action figures, and the supreme baby sitter, the television set. In his teen years, Tom lived in a central Detroit neighborhood featuring a predominantly Polish population. Tom was faced with a choice. Go to some post-apocalyptic plaguehaus innercity public high school, or to attend a Ukrainian Catholic high school. Not wanting to stab or be stabbed, Tom went with the private school. However, being neither Ukrainian nor Catholic (baptized yes, practicing NO), Tom struggled while earning quality teen angst credibility. To make money, Tom flipped pizzas. To save money, he drank really cheap beer. In college, Tom changed majors several times before deciding that an English degree would be a sound choice. (To this day, he is not sure why he wasn’t the target of an intervention.) Not one for great literature, but a copious consumer of media, Tom worked his way onto his college’s daily newspaper, reviewing films and eventually becoming the Entertainment Editor. This led to pounds of free tickets to movies, and a stack of promo CDs. But during those years, Tom was more satisfied by spoken word performance, which led to many appearances on local radio, as well as a hosting gig at Lollapalooza III. Tom also self published several comic books, which were well received and presented in a comic book art show in Portugal, of all places. Tom was not content to follow this path, and felt that a solid decade of bad choices would make life much more interesting. Some highlight-reel decisions included being a bartender in a blind pig for three years, working in the world of automotive sales training, or moving to LA in 1998. LA was Tom’s deal with the devil, and if this were an episode of True Hollywood Story, these were the years of darkness and drug use you typically find around the 25-minute mark. Tom lived in Venice Beach, made PowerPoint slides for car salesmen, and created a massive screw-up portfolio for himself. Its diversity was quite impressive. But what great story filled with mistakes doesn’t feature redemption? In 2003, he finally figured things out and made an incredibly desperate decision to move to Florida. There, in the plastic land of Boca Raton, he reinvented himself. With years of clarity finally improving his mental function, Tom remembered his passion for writing and began work on Leather to the Corinthians his first full-length novel…his response to a lifetime of media over saturation. As a writer he currently participates in the high art of blogging and building a modest social network that provides him with the ability to write snappy comments and register his approval with only a click. Influences: Douglas Adams, Hunter Thompson, WIlliam Burroughs, Phillip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut