Born in Mississippi in 1966. As a child, he lived in Montreal and Italy. He attended highschool in Memphis, TN and moved on to attend Tulane University in New Orleans, LA but he soon dropped out. However, he received a B.A. at Memphis State. He then headed west in 1990 and lived in Portland & Eugene Oregon for several years. He received an MFA in 1995 from Jack Kerouac School at Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. He has lived in California since 1996, primarily in the Bay Area and L.A.

In college, he primarily studied Shakespeare, Faulkner, and James Joyce. He has worked as a homeless counselor, taxi driver, bartender, video store clerk, screenwriter, journalist and as a college professor at Evergreen State, Olympia, WA.

Short stories of his have been published in numerous places, notably Nerve and Bomb. First of the Phineas Poe novels, Kiss Me, Judas originally published in 1999, was selected as Barnes & Noble best new voice, and was translated into five languages. Penny Dreadful was published in 2000.

He is married and has two children, one child by previous marriage. He has one brother, and his parents are still living.

Via the online community Welcome to the Velvet, he shares a fan base with fellow authors Craig Clevenger and Stephen Graham Jones.

Novels

• Kiss Me, Judas (1999)
• Penny Dreadful (2000)
• Hell's Half Acre (2004)
• Godspeed (forthcoming)

Collections

• Phineas Poe (2005)