I got my first taste of publication in first grade, when my essay on Airplane II: The Sequel appeared of my elementary school’s Creative Courier. Seriously. Questionable parental movie supervision notwithstanding, seeing something I had written in print was invigorating. So after spending my formative years running around a small town in rural Iowa, I enrolled in the University of Iowa and eventually picked up degrees in Journalism and Communication Studies. During that time I also spent three years writing for the Daily Iowan. After graduation crossed over to the media relations world in the University of Iowa Sports Information Department, where I spent nine years on the road, running stats and frantically writing postgame stories before the team bus left. I only got left behind once. Marriage and a baby made road trips an impossibility, so I thought the life of a stay-at-home dad would be the perfect way to finally write that novel that had been bouncing around my head for years. How cute is that? Needless to say, caring for a 6-month-old leaves precious little time to breathe, let alone write. I was barely able to keep up with the fake blog I decided to make for her at 3 a.m. the day she was born. But despite being parented by me, the kid got older and my novel idea poked its head out from under an avalanche of dirty diapers. I was ready to start writing. Just in time to find out we were having another kid. This time I knew what I was getting into, however, and I hustled to get whatever I could down before the next avalanche arrived. It was about 14,000 words, and it wasn’t good, but it was the seed from which A Necessary Act grew. That was six years, six drafts and a move to Minnesota ago. There were plenty of detours along the way, including a stint writing opinion pieces as a member of the Rochester Post-Bulletin’s Editorial Advisory Board, but I finally got the book done. I can’t say if it’s good or not—that’s your job—but it’s full of the things I like. Creepy bad guys, twists and bad decisions made for good reasons.