“I grew up around so many great tellers of tales.”

A shortish bio

Storytelling, to me, is the essence of what makes us human. It takes stock of the deep worth of all experience, and says, “This matters.”

I grew up around so many great tellers of tales.

My late Uncle Tom Bracken from Akron, Ohio; my Japanese American relatives in California; my brother, Patrick, who cannot explain a thing without turning it into a long, colorful narrative; my childhood friends with their backyard-bicycle myth-making—all these people can not pass a day without weaving a yarn about coal miner brawls, mystical Catholic visions, the power of vitamins, or the day a tornado hit them on a bicycle.

I think it was almost inevitable that I became a writer—a fiction writer who writes and records songs, and a singer-songwriter who writes fiction—but also someone who believes deeply in public writing and writing and reading education.

I’ve taught creative writing and journalism at Yale University and—for the last 17 years—at East Stroudsburg University.

Oh, and I do a local blog about my adopted hometown of Hellertown, Pennsylvania called My Private Hellertown, where I’m currently running for school board. (On this blog, I’ve begun to unearth some of the fascinating stories almost lost to time in Hellertown.)

I was born in Los Angeles to an English machinist and an American nurse. I helped work my way through college and grad school as a journalist for Alternative Press and other publications (and as a Big Lots clerk, waiter, dishwasher, and lawn cutter). As a reporter and editor, I covered everything from the indie band rock scene and air travel industry to murders and natural disasters, working in Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts and London.

In London, I worked as a copyeditor at a host of British newspapers and magazines, with staff positions at the Guardian and Architects’ Journal. My own writing has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, the Times (London), the Times Literary Supplement, and more, as well as specialty publications such as the Architects’ Journal and Publishers Weekly.

I was somehow appointed a resident fellow at Yale University in 2002, where I lectured in fiction writing, advanced composition, and journalism for four years.

Oh dear. This is getting long.

A couple last bits:

My short fiction, which often explores the lives of the urban underclass and “working poor,” has appeared in journals such as the Indiana Review, Kenyon Review, and Open City.

I live in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, and Night of the Animals is my first novel.