I was born in Minnesota where I developed a taste for science fiction and a love for telling speculative stories. After spending two years in Germany as a young adult, I attended Brigham Young University and married a Utah girl there. That's how I got stuck in Utah for my adult life.

I served three years on the board of the Association for Mormon Letters, a nonprofit organization that promotes Mormon literature and other arts, and I acted as their Writers Conference chairperson for four years. I wrote a number of articles and book and film reviews for their literary journal Irreantum.

I also worked for a time as a staff writer for The Sugar Beet, an Internet publication of Mormon satire patterned after the infamous website The Onion. Many of these online articles of alleged Mormon "news" were eventually collected into the popular book The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer.

The editor of The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer decided to start his own publishing company, Zarahemla Books, and chose as its flagship publication my novel Brother Brigham, which I categorize as "Mormon speculative fiction." It's my first novel, if you don't count a science fiction novel I wrote before that--which I don't, because it stunk! Brother Brigham went on to receive a great deal of critical acclaim.

As a teenager, I composed the operatic musical General Prophet Joseph Smith, which I later polished up and produced on CDs. It's based on historical events leading up to the martyrdom of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. I am in the process of adapting it to film, and hope to go into production within the next year or so. Meanwhile I have just completed filming Geeks and Goblins, Elves and Elliot, a feature-length film, and am in postproduction on it. I hope to have it released by fall 2009.

I reside in Salt Lake City, Utah, and am the father of three very intelligent, creative children.