Your diverse background—military, government service, and federal contracting—has given you unique insights into global affairs. How did those experiences inform your decision to write historical fiction?
I spent years writing plans no one hoped to execute. Fiction, oddly enough, felt more honest. Strategy and history share the same skeleton: consequence. My time in uniform and in government showed me how decisions made in silence ripple outward, reshaping nations and lives. Historical fiction lets me trace those ripples back to their source and sometimes forward into our present.
In Pawn to King’s End, you explore the Great Derangement at the start of the French and Indian War. Why did you choose that particular period, and what drew you to tell this story through the lens of your Acadian ancestors?
Family ghosts are persuasive. My ancestor Gabriel Gosselin was deported in 1755; his name appears on a ship manifest that carried him south, eventually to Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. That was not just history, it was inheritance. The Great Derangement was less about armies than about ordinary families erased from ledgers. Another ancestor, Clément, left letters now housed in the Library of Congress, which I uncovered through genealogical research. One voice survived on paper, the other on a manifest. Writing through the Acadian lens gave me a chance to honor both, and to ask how exile reshapes identity across generations.
You’ve mentioned that history is a “living system of memory, power, and perception.” How does that philosophy shape your approach to storytelling?
It means I do not write marble statues. History is alive, contested, and inconvenient. Who remembers, who forgets, and who controls the record, that is where the real story lies. I write into those fractures, where silence does as much work as speech. My approach is to enter through the silences in documented history, asking what is plausible or even likely when the record falls quiet. That is where hidden lives and untold motives come into focus.
With so much of your previous work being compartmentalized, how does writing allow you to share or process the lessons you learned in those roles?
Compartmentalization trains you to carry truths you cannot speak. Fiction lets me unpack the suitcase without handing over classified contents. I can write about loyalty, betrayal, or the moral cost of obedience without redacting half the page in black ink.
How do you balance historical accuracy with the demands of fiction? Are there times you find yourself needing to bend the facts for the sake of narrative?
I never bend facts, but I do arrange them. Think of it as stage lighting: the set is historically accurate, the costumes authentic, but I decide where to shine the lamp. Sometimes silence in the record is the most revealing source, because it gives fiction room to breathe without lying.
The Secrets of the Republic series focuses on loyalty, survival, and the unfinished work of freedom. How do those themes resonate with your own life experiences?
In uniform, you learn quickly that loyalty can save your life or take it. Survival is never abstract. And freedom, it is always unfinished. I carried those truths across continents. Fiction just lets me give them names, faces, and voices.
You’ve traveled and worked in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. How do these experiences shape the way you portray conflict and human motivations in your novels?
Everywhere I have been, people want the same three things: safety, dignity, and a chance for their children. Conflict grows out of who gets denied which. I have seen it in souks, ministries, and burned-out villages. That perspective keeps me from writing cardboard villains, because every character thinks they are fighting for something just.
False Foreword: The Algorithm is the Weapon sounds like a departure from your historical fiction. What inspired you to write a psychological techno-thriller with Dr. Lugsado Signolés?
Blame boredom and paranoia. After enough time around algorithms, I realized they are not neutral, they are authors. Pair that with narrative warfare and a co-author with a name as improbable as Dr. Signolés, and suddenly I had a thriller where the manuscript itself fights back. It is a love letter and a warning label at once.
Given your background in contingency war planning and federal contracting, how do you see technology reshaping modern conflict, and how does that theme play out in False Foreword?
Wars used to be fought with steel and powder. Now they are fought with code and perception. In False Foreword, the weapon is not a missile, it is the narrative itself. That is not speculation; it is where strategy is already heading. The battlefield is your mind.
Many of your roles required a high degree of discretion. Do you find it liberating to finally give voice to the quiet observations you’ve collected over the years?
Liberating, yes. Safe, not always. Fiction lets me speak without footnotes or clearance officers. I can finally put on the record what silence taught me: sometimes the loudest truths are the ones no one dares to say aloud.
Who are some of your literary influences, and how have they shaped your own writing style?
Hilary Mantel taught me precision. Graham Greene taught me moral ambiguity. Alan Furst gave me atmosphere, and Viet Thanh Nguyen showed me how memory itself can be a character. I have stolen ruthlessly from them all, and hopefully paid homage in the process.
What challenges did you face when shifting from the structured world of military and government service to the more fluid, creative realm of fiction writing?
Even in the military, writing requires creativity, it just cannot sound creative. That disguise mechanism was the perfect training ground for fiction. I started with reconnaissance reports that were cryptographic by necessity, then police-style reports of crime scenes that demanded clarity but no flourish. Later, as a contracting officer and acquisitions analyst, I wrote to persuade, and that is where creativity began to creep in. So the transition was not a single leap, it was a lifelong shift from writing to conceal, to writing to reveal.
What does a typical writing day look like for you? Do you have a set routine or do you write in bursts?
The only real routine is coffee, black dark roast Peet’s, and then I sit down at the computer to pick up where I left off. I do this seven days a week, unless life pulls me away. Most days I am writing, researching, or marketing for ten to twelve hours without noticing how much time has passed. It was not always like this, but once I retired and my consulting work ended, I committed fully. Now it feels less like a routine and more like the work I was meant to do.
Looking ahead to Phantom Patriot: Degrees of Spies, what can readers expect in terms of tone, themes, and new directions in the story?
The fact that I am only now answering this question shows how little I let get in the way when I have a story to tell. I am about to launch Doctrine of Shadows, the third book in the Secrets of the Republic series, but Phantom Patriot was book two, and I loved writing it because it became the origin story of Mr. Smith. If Pawn was about inheritance and Doctrine was about silence, then Phantom Patriot was about origin. It reveals the Republic’s intelligence roots, not as the polished agencies we know today, but in their raw beginnings. Readers can expect betrayal, shadow alliances, and a tone that is more personal and more unnerving. It is the book where the mask is made and where it begins to crack.
How has been your experience with AllAuthor?
AllAuthor has been a solid partner. The platform helps me reach readers I might not otherwise find and creates a sense of community in what is often seen as solitary work. Some of the automated features are useful, others I adapt to my own style, but overall it has given me visibility and support. Writing may look lonely from the outside, but I value solitude, and AllAuthor provides a balance by connecting that solitude to a wider community.
