What's the most improbable but true thing about you?
I have a large room above my garage with over 250 tarantulas and spiders. Once an arachnophobe, I now find working and feeding my eight-legged “pets” to be quite relaxing and enjoyable.

Why did you choose to submit to Horror Over the Handlebars?
I’ve lived in Connecticut for my entire life, and I have always tended to set my fiction in some fictional town in this tiny state. When I saw the posting for Horror Over the Handlebars, I knew that I had to write something specifically for it. The best part is, it would have been an anthology I’d pick up whether my story was accepted or not, so this was a win/win for me.

Tell us a little about your story, “It Happened Deep in the Woods” and its genesis.
My family and I recently moved away from Moosup, Connecticut after living there for 15 years, and we’ve really been missing the town. Back when we lived in Moosup, my wife and I would often walk the old “rails to trails” that connected the tiny little village to the neighboring town of Sterling. Although we always found it quite peaceful on the secluded, wooded trail, we sure saw some strange things and encountered some… odd people on it over the years. I decided that this location would be the perfect setting for a real-word horror piece. The story itself was loosely inspired by an event from my childhood when a group of friends and I found a strange man camping in the woods behind my elementary school.

Tell us about “You Couldn’t Steal a House in the Eighties” in Horror Over the Handlebars and what you liked about it.
“I’ve found this place (Connecticut) to be the Shire of North America, full of nothing to do except for the trees and bushes.”
So says the narrator in “You Couldn’t Steal a House in the Eighties,” and I could certainly identify with his statement. As a high school teacher who has lived in Connecticut for my entire life, I have heard the phrase “there is nothing to do in this state” uttered countless times by bored adolescents and teens. Before the advent of cell phones and social media zombified kids, we would listen to music, wander the surrounding woods, read comic books, and some of us would even risk the wrath of our religious parents by playing a bit of  Dungeons & Dragons in a buddy’s basement. The story “You Couldn’t Steal a House in the Eighties” really resonated with me, as I’m a huge fan of smart, more grounded and realistic horror with a message. It begins as an innocent story about a couple of bored kids who take a break from playing a D&D campaign to roam the dark woods in their Connecticut neighborhood. However, once they stumble upon an unfinished home, it takes a much more sinister and suspenseful turn. I love the build up and that final gut punch of a last sentence.

If you could time travel, where would you go, what would you do, and why would you do that?
You know, I’ve read enough theories on time travel and the possible implications of it, that I would be afraid that I’d cause some type of horrific butterfly effect or reality breaking paradox that would destroy my life as I know it. That’s a big NO THANK YOU to that…

Who would you bring back from the dead for one hour and what would you do with them?
I would bring my grandfather, Herb, back so that he could spend an hour with my family and meet the great grandchildren he never got to meet. I think that he would get along wonderfully with my crazy kids.

What's your favorite piece of art? Could be music, writing, sculpture, painting...
I’m a huge fan of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the illustrator Bernie Wrightson, so my copy of Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein is probably my favorite piece of art. Great story and mind-blowingly gorgeous pen and ink illustrations…how can you do better than that? The illustrator and writer in me find it equally inspiring.

What are you most proud of creating?
After not doing much long-form writing for close to twenty years, I finally banged out The Old Man’s Monsters, a story that had been percolating in my brain for close to three decades. The fact that two of my kids, who don’t do a lot of reading these days, read and love it was amazing.

What's next on your literary horizon?
This summer break, I’ll be polishing up and submitting my novel and hoping that some of my many current submissions come back as acceptances.

Where can readers connect with you online?
I’m currently working on an author website, so right now folks can find me on my author YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1sIxWeys1bIaQsns4KVfjQ