I am a recently retired college professor. I taught for over forty years at universities in Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and I spent the last twenty-four years at a California community college. I live in Southern California wine country with my wife, Kitty, and our two other cats. As a recent retiree, I now have all the time I need to devote to three of my lifetime passions: writing, reading, and traveling.
My wife and I travel extensively throughout the United States, and we travel internationally at least once a year. Last year we were in Italy. The year before that we toured Ireland. We just recently returned from a trip to France. The travel bug has bitten both of us, and we are hooked. We intend to travel as along as we are healthy enough to do so. Having traveled the world extensively, and having lived in a variety of cultures abroad, has greatly helped my writing. I am a keen observer of others. I have learned so much from having lived in and traveled in other cultures. I love being a part of different cultures, learning things that I would never have known if I had stayed only in my native California.
I have traveled extensively throughout the world, having lived in a wide variety of places: Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Caribbean. Every place I have visited has had some impact on me and on what ends up in my books. Deadly Eyes, for example, is set in the Caribbean, where I spent four glorious years on the idyllic island of St. Croix, where the mystery takes place. Covert Dreams, my first international thriller, is set in both Munich, where I have traveled to on many occasions, having lived and studied in Germany, and in Saudi Arabia, where I was a professor at the University of Petroleum and Minerals and traveled widely throughout the Middle East.
World travel, I find, opens people’s eyes to new things. It gives them different perspectives about life and how to live that would not have been realized without the exposure to other cultures. World travel provides a better understanding of others. It teaches one a new respect for things that are done differently than at home. It makes one more understanding of others.
I will continue to travel as long as I am able to do so. I will also continue writing as long as I live. The two go together for me. I wholeheartedly recommend world travel. It is one of the greatest educational experiences possible. The sugar-white sands of St. Croix and the burning sands of Saudi Arabia, as divergent as night and day, have both had an impact on me as a person, and both have found permanent homes in my writing. Yes, I have learned much from my international travels, and yet there is still so much more to learn, and I fully intend to do so, starting with our next overseas adventure.
