...which has given me the desire to find the story in everything.

Sometimes, that means I look close to home:  the comedy of a beach trip with the kids, the simple joy of a neighborhood walk, or an observation about human behavior at the grocery store.

Other times, I've traveled far to get my stories: to the blood-soaked pavement in Baghdad, the dust and sweat of Iraq's southern deserts, the rugged beauty of Kodiak Island, or the verdant plains of Kurdistan.

Whether it's a comedy, tragedy, or something between, I've found that for every person in every place, there's a story.

It's that curiosity and love for the humanity behind the story that drives me to write and it's that humanity behind the story that I hope shines through in my writing, no matter what the genre.