His childhood was spent alternately in Brooklyn and at a house on Long Island. Ultimately, his family settled at the country house in 1963 after a false start several years earlier. He graduated high school there in 1967 and, after giving college a try, entered the Air Force in September of 1969. His interest in writing became obsessive during the 70s and he wrote several novels and at least twenty short stories while kicking around between New York and Florida. In 1982 he began studying with the Manhattan fiction writer Rosemarie Santini. She filled him with encouragement, saying she was the Gertrude Stein to his Ernest Hemingway. He remembers those two years with love. Rosemarie taught him how to step back and not be an admirer of his own writing. She said if he wanted to write like Hemingway he had to be as choosey as Hemingway was in cutting the fat; 6/7ths of the rough has to go. By 1984, he had ended his studies with Ms Santini to set up a cleaning operation with two friends. The business ate up any time he might have had for writing. He began writing again in 1991. He met his wife Marion during the summer of 1994 and were married in January of 1995. She has been extremely supportive.