Biography
What on earth is Mike doing here? He is not a poet damned with a poet’s eyes, nor even a writer’s soul. He has the soul of an editor, much more comfortable with refining existing material than with producing something original. He did not know at an early age that he had a book somewhere deep in his guts, yearning to come out. He doesn’t follow web journals. He did not major in English Lit, but mathematics. These are not promising grounds for books on Fairyland and entertaining essays.
Mike likes games. Lots of different kinds of games – board games, role-playing games, computer games, anything that explores the question of how to get the most out of a situation while someone else (or many someone elses) are operating at cross purposes to one’s own. That’s how he got into just about everything he’s ever done.
He’s studied math at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rockford College, and the University of Illinois, because math homework always had the best puzzles. His graduate work is in optimization theory, of which games theory is a prominent branch. He’s also read a lot of history, because the rise and fall of empires, merchant princes, and great battles are all games writ large.
He attends at least two gaming conferences a year, sometimes more. He typically writes and runs two adventures for each.
He currently plays a Dungeons and Dragons campaign weekly, though he desperately wants to talk his fellow players into using a different system.
He squanders his free time on computer strategy games. Civilization, Zeus, and Age of Empires figure heavily in this wastefulness.
He has just written a book on natural and social law of Fairyland, and hopes to find an editor. He started the project out of curiosity about ritualized games found in folk tales, though the book grew and changed even as he researched.
That the book was finished at all is due to his lovely wife, Eileene, who kicks his literary ass when needed, maintains this web site, and helps host a monthly round of board games with friends. They have neither pets nor children, though Mike does look longingly at dogs they pass in the park.