I was born and raised in New York City, and went to college in the East Village in the late '60s, where the most valuable thing I learned was how to sneak downstairs at Fillmore East. After four years in upstate New York and six in Oklahoma City, I arrived in Los Angeles in 1979.
The '80s were my acting years; I was in a bunch of plays and an endless succession of improvisational comedy troupes, and received two semi-prestigious Drama-Logue awards. I also had the honor of being cut from an episode of Moonlighting, and appeared in an installment of Sledge Hammer! (photo here) for which I still receive residuals totaling approximately $1.81 a year.
My fifteen minutes of fame came in 1985, when I was a five-times-undefeated champion on Jeopardy! I promptly squandered the prize money. In 1991, I won seven games (the show's record) on The Challengers, and got to shake Dick Clark's hand fourteen times.
During the last week of the 1980s I met Andrea Cohen. Four years to the day later, we were married. Andrea's a high-school history teacher, and my inspiration.
In 1992, more or less on a whim, I took a short story class at UCLA Extension. I began kicking out stories (available here), most of them science fiction or fantasy, and managed to sell some. Reading the complete works of Raymond Chandler prompted a switch to crime fiction. One fortuitous meeting with an agent at a writer's conference later, I had a book deal. I was fifty years old when my first novel was published. So was Chandler. Read into this what you will.
I'm a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers, and former president of the Southern California MWA chapter.
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