About
Meet the Author
In third grade, I drew a picture of myself as a future children’s story writer. That drawing survived a flood decades later, and the wish behind it has accompanied me through every chapter of my life. Writing has always been integral to who I am: a way of listening, discovering, and reaching toward something I cannot quite name until it begins to take shape on the page.
My work spans memoir and cultural history, literary fiction, stories for young readers, poetry, fables, and plays. I’m drawn to the lives people carry beneath their visible ones—to the meanings we inherit, the stories we construct, and the ways our perceptions shape what we believe is possible. I delight in interweaving threads, in the small exchange that gathers significance, in a character whose understanding shifts almost imperceptibly before opening into something profound. There is room, too, for mystery, mischief, and—now and then—a clumsy ghost.
Beyond the page, those questions have taken me into unexpected places. In 1999, my wife Cindy Sproul and I co-founded RainbowWeddingNetwork, the nation’s first LGBTQ+ wedding platform. Since then, our company has produced more than 365 LGBTQ+ wedding expos in 37 states, connecting tens of thousands of couples and wedding professionals. I also served as senior editor of RainbowWeddingNetwork Magazine. Together, we have helped create places where couples could envision and celebrate their lives openly—often long before the law recognized their right to marry.
That experience informs my memoir, Commitment, and deepens an abiding conviction: the choices we make in ordinary life can contribute to extraordinary cultural change. A conversation, an invitation, a willingness to reconsider an assumption—such things accumulate.
My degree in sociology, with an emphasis in social psychology, gives me one lens through which to explore these connections. Teaching preschool, working in environmental education, and founding The Recovery Theatre & Arts Project have offered others. Through the theatre group, I brought people together to explore their experiences through performance and art, making room for vulnerability, recognition, and the celebration of creative gifts.
Animals have been another lifelong connection. My work in wildlife rehabilitation and an apprenticeship with a falconer brought me into the company of remarkable creatures, each with its own needs, temperament, and ways of communicating. That care continues at home. I find something sacred in these relationships: a wordless exchange that can be playful, heartbreaking, quietly reassuring, and full of wonder.
Today, I live with Cindy, our two daughters, and our menagerie of pets on a small rural Vermont homestead, not far from the little town where my mother was born and raised... and where branches of our family tree can be traced back to the 1600s. Over the years I've lived in other parts of the country, including nearly 20 years in the wonderful haven that is Asheville NC, but Vermont has always felt like my karmic center. I love spending time on our homestead, and enjoying various activities throughout the seasons, such as kayaking on the nearby lake, hiking, ice skating and taking scenic drives to discover new adventures. Here in Vermont is the place where family, community, the animals, and the rhythms of this quiet place continually enlarge my understanding of interconnection, vitality, vastness and belonging.
My creative life also finds its way into drawing, painting, songs, and tales shared at home. In 2014, I self-published The Locket, a contemporary family drama; other manuscripts continue their journeys toward an expanding circle of readers. Given the choice, I still prefer a pen, paper, and candlelight. I treasure the intimacy of that process, the unexpected places a story takes me, and the occasional ridiculous scribbles along the margins that make me laugh at my own quirky sense of humor.