About Jeff
His whole life, he’s been fascinated by the fantastic, and of course this extended to speculative fiction of all kinds. Countless prepubescent evenings found him reading a worn, dog-eared copy of Thuvia, Maid of Mars (it sounded so much dirtier than it was!) or The Frost Giant’s Daughter (high hopes for that one too!) well past lights-out, flashlight in hand, ignoring the repeated calls to turn in. That’s as harmless a rebellion as you can have, and his parents mostly sighed and left him to it.
So, no one has ever been surprised to hear that he was working on (or at least talking about working on) some sci-fi or fantasy story or other. But it took years of lollygagging and halfassery before he finally mastered himself enough to finish a novel. And longer still before he finished another one that was worthy of being published.
But wonders never cease. And here we are.
His debut novel, Scourge of the Betrayer, was a hard-boiled gritty fantasy published by Night Shade Books in May 2012. The second and third books in the series—Veil of the Deserters and Chains of the Heretic—were picked up by Skyhorse who maintained the Night Shade Books imprint. He’s also had some shorts appear in anthologies the last few years.
He is thrilled to be represented by Hannah Andrade of the Bradford Literary Agency.
Jeff lives with his extraordinary wife, Kris, and his three talented and amazing daughters in a suburb west of Chicago. He is indebted to Kris in countless ways for her steadfast encouragement, support, and thick skin in dealing with a prickly, moody writer.
And yes, he is fully aware that siring three daughters is certainly karmic retribution, especially since they hit teenagehood. He clings to the hope of discovering at least one of them reading covertly in the middle of the night. That kind of transgression he can handle.
Jeff grew up in a small town north of Chicago. While it wasn’t a hamlet, with all the doors unlocked and everyone offering each other slices of pie and quaint homilies, it was quiet and sleepy, so he got started early imagining his way into all kinds of other worlds that were loud, chaotic, and full of irrepressible characters and heaps of danger. Massive explosions. Tentacled aliens. Men and women with sharp swords and thousand-yard stares and secrets they would die to protect.
Clearly, he was a full-bore dork. Don’t let him tell you different.
Royal Crown bag full of multi-sided dice? Check. Blood-red hooded cloak? Check. Annual pilgrimages to Renaissance Faires? Check. Whacking other (curiously athletic and gifted) dorks with rattan swords in the SCA? Check. Yes, he earned his badges, thank you very much.