ABOUT
I grew up in Sacramento, California, graduated from Dartmouth College and Stanford Law School, and embarked on a legal career in Silicon Valley, during which I consistently have been named a Northern California Super Lawyer in Intellectual Property Litigation by Thomson Reuters.
I always wanted to be a lawyer and a writer. But I knew the odds were very much in favor of earning a good living if I went into the law. As my legal career progressed, however, the writing urge got stronger.
I began writing short fiction when there were intervals of free time during my busy law practice. I first had short stories accepted by literary magazines and published in 2010, and I’ve continued in that endeavor through the present time. I also write short creative nonfiction. Click here for more background and some (free) links to recent publications.
The Ghost Case Posse is my debut novel. The fictional defendant, Dexter Wayne Jones, is a copycat of the real-life Golden State Killer, who originally was known in Sacramento as the East Area Rapist. I attended college on the East Coast, but I was home during summers when he was terrorizing the community. Only after he was apprehended many years later through DNA evidence and genealogical sleuthing did I learn that his crime spree had continued after he “left” Sacramento and moved on to other parts of California.
After reading more about his many crimes and watching a documentary that interviewed some of his victims, whose lives had been severely impacted and sometimes virtually destroyed, I began to come up with ideas for the novel.
I set the novel in fictional Murrieta County, north of Sacramento, so that there would be no implication or inference that the fictional characters or events I created were based on real people or their actions.
While I’m now planning to spend more time on my writing than on my legal career, I continue to be an active member of the California Bar. My wife, Roslyn, and I are proud parents and grandparents. We live on California’s Central Coast.
JOE
About
I grew up in Sacramento, California, graduated from Dartmouth College and Stanford Law School, and embarked on a legal career in Silicon Valley, during which I consistently have been named a Northern California Super Lawyer in Intellectual Property Litigation by Thomson Reuters.
I always wanted to be a lawyer and a writer. But I knew the odds were very much in favor of earning a good living if I went into the law. As my legal career progressed, however, the writing urge got stronger.
I began writing short fiction when there were intervals of free time during my busy law practice. I first had short stories accepted by literary magazines and published in 2010, and I’ve continued in that endeavor through the present time. I also write short creative nonfiction. Click here for more background and some (free) links to recent publications.
The Ghost Case Posse is my debut novel. The fictional defendant, Dexter Wayne Jones, is a copycat of the real-life Golden State Killer, who originally was known in Sacramento as the East Area Rapist. I attended college on the East Coast, but I was home during summers when he was terrorizing the community. Only after he was apprehended many years later through DNA evidence and genealogical sleuthing did I learn that his crime spree had continued after he “left” Sacramento and moved on to other parts of California.
After reading more about his many crimes and watching a documentary that interviewed some of his victims, whose lives had been severely impacted and sometimes virtually destroyed, I began to come up with ideas for the novel.
I set the novel in fictional Murrieta County, north of Sacramento, so that there would be no implication or inference that the fictional characters or events I created were based on real people or their actions.
While I’m now planning to spend more time on my writing than on my legal career, I continue to be an active member of the California Bar. My wife, Roslyn, and I are proud parents and grandparents. We live on California’s Central Coast.