Quick Bio

(I can’t talk about myself in the third person, so this is me)

I’ve lived outside of Chicago my entire life, currently in the town of Oswego, IL where the race of suburbia meets the quiet of farm country.  My wife and I met on a blind date, one of the worst either of us ever had.  I’m so grateful she agreed to a second.  We have two boys (Aidan, Anderson) who keep us busy with sports, cat videos, and traveling anywhere we can.  My days are spent as an educator in a middle school, my nights as a husband and father, my weekends as a writer. 

I began writing Speechless a few years ago after witnessing a profound moment at a wake of someone taken all too soon.  It stayed with me until I wrote it down and the characters grew from the seed.  In 2016 Speechless gained traction and was selected as a finalist for the middle grade category of a manuscript contest.  After working with through revisions with my mentor, I was offered representation and Speechless found a home at Candlewick Press.

Meatier Bio

 Middle school for me was without a doubt the worst time in my life. I remember so much of it and didn’t realize how it would shape me. If you’d told me at 13 that I was going to end up working in a middle school for a career, I would have cried. But I love it. I love that I get to give the kids a different experience than I had. I get to make sure the quiet kids are seen and heard, something I never got at that age. I get to use their boundless energy and awkwardness as tools to make the day memorable for them. I was meant to be a middle school educator and a middle grade writer.

My writing career didn’t happen until years into my teaching career. I minored in creative writing in college, but like most writers, I cringe at what I produced in my early years. I honestly didn’t write for about 10 years and focused only on my teaching. I realized how much teaching influenced my work—not just the stories the give give me, but that every day I literally had to get kids interested in something they weren’t interested in. I had to make them care about the Constitution, make them empathize with Simon from Lord of the Flies, and get them to think and feel a certain way about the Cold War. Lesson design honed my skills as a writer without me realizing it. Once I made the conscious choice to write a manuscript, my life changed. Since Speechless, I’ve only learned more. I’ve learned that every writer has manuscripts in a drawer that never see the shelf. I’ve learned that publishing is a business, and sometimes business decisions have to be made. I’ve learned how much of an introvert I am whenever I’m in a social setting and think to myself, “please, don’t let anyone ask when my next book is coming out.” Warts and all, I wouldn’t change any of it.