Little Known Stories Brought to Life

As someone who is intellectually curious by nature, I have always been fascinated by the little known stories of the past. By combining an interest in history with a penchant for travel, I founded My American Odyssey in 2010, a travel blog dedicated to obscure and offbeat stories from towns and cities across the US.

The craft of writing is my art. After earning a masters degree in Creative Writing, I set about teaching myself to write novels. To date I have written nine novels, but it's not just a question of getting through. To me a novel is not ready to be published until it's perfected. To date I have published two novels, both historical fiction covering a little known period of Western history—in fact, the most obscure period of the last 2,000 years—the last 100 years of the Roman Empire, often called the Fall. These books required years of patient research and invention and are part of a series, the third and fourth installments of which will be released in fall of 2024.

While honing my craft as a novelist, I had to earn a living, so in 1995 I started a business. Having spent 10 years as a sales and marketing manager for a company in the picture framing industry, I identified a need for picture framing instruction targeted at artists and photographers who wanted to frame for themselves. I founded Framing4Yourself as a seminar program but soon began selling equipment and materials out of the workshops. When students wanted to buy more products from me, I developed an e-commerce website to serve them. Framing4Yourself was the first online picture framing website, established in 1998 when online retail was in its infancy. Eventually it comprised an on-line catalog and hundreds of pages of how-to articles and tutorials. All of the website content was written by me and optimized for SEO. At its height, it generated over a million dollars in sales. I sold the company in 2019.

In the course of my business I was approached by Watson-Guptill Publishing (now a part of Random House) about writing a how-to book for picture framing. I wrote Mat, Mount and Frame it Yourself in 2002, followed by The Complete Guide to Home Picture Framing in 2004. Both books were best sellers in the area of picture framing for several years.

Today I devote most of my time to writing the next installments of my novels in the Amulet Series about the Fall of Rome. The first four books will tell a comprehensive story of the last 50 years of Rome's existence with major historical figures interacting with my fictional characters. I then plan to go back to the beginning of Rome's decline, the first 50 years, to tell the story of the pivotal events that were the beginning of the end for Rome.

Novel writing is an intellectually taxing pursuit and can only be engaged in for 4-5 hours a day, which leaves me with plenty of free time. Thus, I am seeking other projects to work on. Perhaps I can bring my skills and talents to bear for you.

Work Terms

I am prepared to work 4-6 hours a day for a base price of $25/hr.

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