I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri — the son of an editor and an artist. The writing was always there. Looking back there's a clear thread running through my early life, poems and publications that pointed somewhere I wasn't ready to follow yet.

It wasn't until my mid-twenties that I understood it as a calling. Not an ambition. A responsibility. Something I owed the world rather than something I owed myself.

I write because I want to. Because locating a feeling and giving it words is the most honest thing I know how to do. If something here finds you — if you recognize the feeling the moment you read it — I'm glad it reached you. I hope you carry that feeling with you and give it to someone else.