He has a PhD in English with Creative Writing emphasis from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is also an officer and helicopter pilot in the Arkansas Army National Guard, and he recently finished a one-year combat tour in Iraq. Though born in California, the product of Ohio and Michigan born parents, he has spent nearly two-thirds of his life in the South and has most definitely gone native. His recent publications include poetry in Mid-South Review and The Oklahoma Review and a literary essay in Philological Review.