Born in East Hampton (technically in Southampton Hospital), on Long Island, NY in 1961. He attended the Catholic School of Most Holy Trinity for the first and second grades. He moved west to Wading River, Long Island, where he attended public school until he entered St. Isidore’s School in the seventh grade and went on to graduate Mercy (now known as McGann Mercy) High School. He then received a BS in Physics with astrophysics minor from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1983, but because of a poor employment outlook among scientists that year continued on to get a MA in Computer Science from Hofstra University in 1986. He spent eight years in the 1990’s living and working in Key West Florida for a small online computer gaming company. He has been involved in “National Novel Writing Month” since 2004, achieving the goal every year since 2005 and being a “Municipal Liaison” for the Long Island region (now divided into Nassau and Suffolk) for a couple of years.