About Me

I write because I must. I tell stories because God tells stories. Welcome to my site.

My work has taken me through churches, classrooms, nonprofits, magazines, and the great outdoors. I currently work in communications and development for a Christian foster care ministry, and I serve with the Wildlife Committee of the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. In both places, I get to do what I love: tell stories, communicate ideas, and help good work find an audience.

Along the way, I’ve written for The Well Community Church, contributed to Lifeway’s Stand Firm men’s devotional, and had my work published in Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. I’ve written about faith, culture, the outdoors, hunting, fatherhood, and the strange business these days of being a man trying to make his way through the world with eyes to see.

I’m also a fiction writer. I write Westerns, men’s adventure fiction, and noir under the name George Cottonwood Books. Some of those stories have found their way into print, and I’m continuing to write more. Fiction gives me a chance to chase the kinds of stories I’ve always loved—hard men, wide places, moral choices, dusty roads, and the occasional gunfight.

Before all of this, I studied agricultural journalism and communications at Texas A&M University, graduating in 2008. I later earned a Master of Divinity from Southern Seminary in 2020. Most of what I know about writing, faith, people, and life has come from doing the work, asking questions, making mistakes, and getting back up.

I’m married to a beautiful, wonderful, exquisite wife who patiently endures my curmudgeonliness. I’m the father to two incredible boys, one bio and one foster. They are the best parts of my life.

At the center of all of it is a simple ambition: to know Jesus more and to help others know him. I write to wake myself up, and to help others wake up, to walk in the light, and to ride forth to victory. Join me as I share my stories, my musings, and the lessons I’m learning along the way.

1 Awake, awake,
    put on your strength, O Zion;
put on your beautiful garments,
    O Jerusalem, the holy city;
for there shall no more come into you
    the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2 Shake yourself from the dust and arise;
    be seated, O Jerusalem;
loose the bonds from your neck,
    O captive daughter of Zion.

Isaiah 52:1-2 ESV

 Welcome. Come stay a while and let’s visit.