I’d always thought of myself as an actor/writer, but one day in Los Angeles in 2005, I realized that all I was writing was a few words in a journal every morning. A very few very boring words. I needed to be around other writers. That was my solution. So, I saw a notice in…
My inspiration for The Last Ancient started off as something darker than the final product. Some people very close to me were having their lives ripped apart by addiction, and I began writing a parable about that downward spiral. Then I basically went down a creative rabbit hole myself, found some incredible stuff, recorded it,…
Inspiration for my novel, The Soul of the Sun came from a dream. I have these incredibly detailed dreams that unfold before me as a movie. Usually I am the observer, but I always understand and feel everything that each person in the dream is experiencing. The sense of time and place is always very…
I can thank my daughter for the inspiration for Heart Knot Mine. One evening she came around with the DVD of The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, along with Jude Law and Jack Black, for us to watch. She knows me well—I’m a sucker for a good romantic comedy. The cheeky minx told…
Tanner Builds a Block Tower comes from a visit with my grandson, he loved to build towers with his blocks. On a particular visit when he was about three, we would go outside and explore everything he could get his hands on. He especially liked bugs. I was totally inspired by his fascination and determination.…
The idea for the book came to me, seemingly, out of the blue about the time my son was six years old. But like most events in life that seem random, since I wasn’t actively thinking about writing a children’s book, it was really an idea that had been percolating in the back of my…
Romancing the Rumrunner came about in a very strange fashion. Usually my stories start with the characters, or an idea or scene that I expand into a full story. But in Rumrunner’s case, the story was actually born from the cover. My publisher, Entangled Publishing, has always created gorgeous covers for my books and Romancing…
When I was young boy I met a Taoist by a poolside. He took an interest in me and told me about the Tao, at least until I started to tell him about it. He was so intrigued by me he taught me how to meditate like a Taoist and then gave me his copy…
Every June 9, the Republic of Panama mourns the anniversary of Father Héctor Gallego’s disappearance. More than forty years after the crime, his case still remains a source of deep, national pain. While researching The Saint of Santa Fe, I spent a considerable amount of time in the mountains of the province of Veraguas, where…
In a boring law office surrounded by paper on a cold, January day, I looked up and saw him. There, as bright as the sun that flooded the window beside me, stood a black horse with glowing eyes. He had a worrisome expression as he pawed the ground and nickered as if to say “listen…
The Story Behind the Book 